


I'll Take You Under My Wing

by agib, ShoyzzArt



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Angst, Bird/Human Hybrids, Child Abuse, Dehumanization, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Escape, Fluff, Force-Feeding, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Maximum Ride, Medical Torture, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter and Tony have Wings, Poor Peter Parker, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, Whump, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2019-10-18 06:28:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agib/pseuds/agib, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShoyzzArt/pseuds/ShoyzzArt
Summary: Obadiah and Howard let HYDRA test on Tony Stark as a child. Now he has wings.Many years later, HYDRA contacts them out of the blue, wanting Tony back.Being the good friend Rhodey is, he warns Tony and supports his choice to go off the grid.Tony's not upset about going on the run, although nothing can prepare him for what HYDRA has created and experimented on for fourteen years...Or - The Maximum Ride AU that (I hope) people wanted...





	1. Prologue + Hacking into HYDRA

**Author's Note:**

> HI!
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this and it's been so much fun working on this with Shoyzz!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave all the comments letting us know what you think!
> 
> <3

 

_Prologue_

 

Have you ever seen a cat, that has managed to catch a bird?

 

A small, tawny, _baby_ bird. All soft feathers and wide brown eyes, innocently hopping along the ground, pecking at small pickings, completely unaware that mere feet away, a seemingly harmless house cat was readying itself to pounce.

 

Once the cat pinned the chick down with extended claws, it dragged the fledgling back into its den. But have you ever considered, that maybe the bird was still alive…

 

Still struggling.

 

Still fighting for its life and its freedom.

 

\----

 

Have you ever watched the bird’s wings? Have you ever paid close attention and seen as they fold up against the bird’s back in protection? Or noticed how the poor fledgling yearns to be outside again, where they truly belong.

 

Now, imagine that same bird, who has _never_ been outside before - imagine that animal, which has been trapped indoors, strapped down to lab tables and locked in cages for the entirety of its life. The bird who was never able to fully unfurl its wings, and never had the proper nutrition to allow their feathers to strengthen, or to allow their wings to grow to their full size.

 

And now, after you’ve pictured that baby bird, imagine that bird’s saviour.

 

Imagine that small fledgling stepping outside for the first time, fully extending their wings, smelling, seeing, hearing the nature which now surrounded them, unlike the walls of their dog crate, caged prison.

 

The world outside which was so unlike the endless maze of bland, white walls, and dark stains of long since dried blood. The fresh air, so vastly different to the sterile smell which clouded the rooms that bird didn’t even have the freedom to roam.

 

\----

 

Now, imagine Peter as that young bird.

 

Imagine Tony as his saviour.

 

Imagine HYDRA as that cat, making Peter and Tony the birds that were perpetually running, looking behind their backs for fear of being caught in that cat’s mouth so it could drag them, kicking and screaming, back into the house and away from the outside world which birds were always supposed to have freedom within.

 

The world which birds has always been made to soar through, to leave behind a beautiful trail of feathers in their wake.

 

The mountaintops they would brush, the clouds they would materialise through as they dipped and dove through the sky like shooting stars that flowed through the night.

 

Gliding through summer rainfall, bouncing through freshly fallen snow. Sending warm tinted leaves floating into the air as they took off into the sky with a flap of mesmerising wings. All the colours of spring matching their bright feathers, all the affection they displayed, and metaphorical meanings they held, like doves and love. Birds were supposed to represent freedom, but not when they were caged and restrained, locked away from the world like a horrid secret.

 

_End of Prologue_

 

_Hacking Into HYDRA_

 

“Sir?”

 

There was a long sigh before the sound of a scalpel being gently placed to the side, resting on the metal operating table.

 

“What?” The man in the horribly white lab coat asked, peeling off one of his yellow gloves and dropping it into a hazardous waste bin before rubbing a hand over his face as if he were tired. “Have you gotten through the list already?” He snatched the laminated sheet from the second head operator, frowning as he saw the permanent marker lines that had nullified each item on the list, starting at ‘spinal tap,’ and finishing on ‘spinal fusion.’

 

“Yes, we finished the list after two months. If I may suggest…” the man paused, flickering his gaze up from where it had been watching the unconscious subject’s chest rising and falling in time to the heart monitor. “I believe we’re going to need the original subject back,” the head surgeons eyes narrowed. “We’ve done everything you’ve asked, there are barely any more procedures or tests we can complete without healthy wings. We don’t have the resources to keep our current subject’s health in good enough condition for his to grow to their full size.”

 

“I see where you’re coming from, especially if we’re going to take some readings on actual flight tests, because this one’s practically a lost cause at this point.” The man’s un-gloved hand waved lazily in the direction of the small form stretched out over the operating table. The movement of his arm ruffled a few of the bland, coppery grey feathers. They were sparse, and most were still damp at the edges, a few patches were almost transparent, each row growing steadily unhealthier than the last. 

 

The tips had been pinned down against the table, so that the head surgeon had easy access to the subject’s spine, it was nearing the end of the second month, and that meant they had almost finished the spinal surgeries and experiments, the next two to four months would be spent on the next area of the subject’s body.

 

“So, you agree then?” There was a nod, and then the man resumed his work as he rolled a fresh glove over his free hand, before picking up a more precise scalpel, which wasn’t stained a deep red.

 

“I’ll speak to the supervisor about contacting Howard, or Obadiah. Someone will need to make a note for financing because I can guarantee, they’ll want to squeeze all the cash out of us in exchange for their _feathered friend_.” The second in command grimaced slightly at the idea of having to deal with more budget cuts just for another beak they had to bother feeding.

 

The water they provided racked up a large price, especially with all the drugs, artificial vitamins and necessary fluids that were mixed into them each day, _or every second day, depending on how much the subject acted out._

 

Both of the surgeon’s heads turned when the monitor peaked slightly and a few seconds later, the subjects finger twitched where it rested by his side. “Don’t worry about it, I just gave him a small dosage this time, it wasn’t a long one. I’ll radio the guards, he’ll probably conk out as soon as they put him in the cage.” He leaned over to the bench beside the operating table and pressed a ridged button on the side of the walkie-talkie. “Yeah, _birdie’s_ ready for lights out. Time to pick ‘em up and walk him back down to the cage.”

 

There was a pause, and then a staticky reply that the head surgeon somehow managed to decipher as an understandable affirmative. “Thanks, just you tonight, he’s so drugged up, there won’t be any problem.”

 

\----

 

Privatised Message Archives: _HYDRA Facilities, to Howard Stark & Obadiah Stane._

 

HYDRA Facilities: _Provided you are able to present us with the original subject, and the avian DNA is still biologically present, as well as the wings, feathers and skeleton, we are willing to exchange a fixed payment in return for possession of Anthony Edward Stark. Please reply so we may discuss price points privately, in addition to settling on a set date of transfer, assuming you accept this offer._

 

Stark Industries: _Anthony is in healthy condition, as far as we are concerned, his wings developed at a natural pace and although they are never on display to the public, they can support his weight in flight. He still presents multiple avian qualities, we have not tested his blood since he was a child, but there isn’t any chance the avian DNA could have been removed or altered without our knowledge. We are not willing to keep any hard copies of these exchanges, and request to discuss payment in person._

 

HYDRA Facilities: _You will be contacted directly by the supervisor, you will meet in person to discuss payment._

 

\----

 

_May 29th, 1970._

 

Maria Stark was contacted by an anonymous research company. They offered a large payment if she gave written permission for them to analyse the DNA makeup of her child, who she had named Anthony Edward Stark. She was wary, but Howard, who had been contacted all the same, except the guise of ‘anonymous research company’ had been dropped for HYDRA, was less on the fence about giving permission. Obadiah was the one who pushed both of them over the edge, ‘ _what’s the worst that could happen?_ ’ He had argued as he scrawled his signature over the official request, sliding it over to Howard, and then Maria, who took a much longer time to finally relent.

 

Turns out, the worst they could do was inject a previously synthesized serum into the child, which caused a genetic mutation.

 

Of course, Howard and Obadiah took great care to not only hide the now winged child from Maria, but from the public too. Tony grew up, he learnt to slip his wings into the slits in his back, which ran up along beside his spine and allowed him to hide the wings and feathers. Albeit, there were still noticeable lumps which were obvious if he wore normal clothing, but Howard was fine providing larger sized sweatshirts and rain jackets if it meant the ‘ _embarrassment of his mutant child would stay a secret_ ,’ as he so often said.

 

As Tony aged, his inheritance of Howard’s intellectual capabilities became much more apparent. He was never to be ‘the face of the company,’ because Obadiah deemed it too much of a risk, but he was however, the man behind the scenes who designed and engineered to his heart’s content in private labs which he would lock himself away in for hours, and sometimes days. 

 

There were times when he was younger, where he would shut the blinds and make sure his lab was closed off to any prying eyes, and he would take the time to cut two strips of fabric from his sweater, and slowly, carefully, unfurl his wings. Sometimes, on the rare occasion he felt safe enough to do so, Tony would gingerly swipe his long appendages up and down, until he felt his head brushing the ceiling as a wide grin broke across his face.

 

As a younger child, they were easier to hide, because the wingspan barely reached a length that was difficult to stuff away against his back. But, as a teen and young adult, they became harder and harder to hide, and the time it took him to stuff them under a large jacket extended. Howard banned him from ever revealing his feathers around home, let alone in public.

 

\----

 

_December 16th, 1991._

 

Maria Stark didn’t make it home in time for Christmas. In fact, she didn’t even make it to the airport. The coroner said she would have died on impact, the semi-truck hit the driver’s side and she wouldn’t have felt pain.

 

Tony felt like he got the pain instead.

 

It had always been hard to keep his wings from his mother, but he never knew the reason why he was supposed to. Despite that secret, Tony loved his Mum, much more than he ever would his father, perhaps it was because his mother didn’t sneer at him if she found a stray feather in the laundry basket like his father did.

 

\----

 

Howard told Tony he would have to go to Afghanistan for a weapons demo with him, because he wasn’t trusted not to ‘fly around the labs,’ when he was home alone.

 

Rhodey, who Tony had happened to befriend, took it upon himself to look through some encrypted email files between Howard, Obadiah and a separate organisation who happened to wire a large payment across to private accounts, not connected to Stark Industries.

 

The fact that Tony wasn’t overly surprised that his father had traded him for money, was probably the worst part, but Rhodey didn’t stop him when he found his friend holding two duffel bags filled with clothing, cash and a flash drive labelled ‘A.I’s.’

 

“So, you’re going off the grid then?” He asked, looking at Tony and trying to find the fear that should have been present in his gaze.

 

“Yep,” the genius replied, popping the ‘p.’ If Rhodey was being honest, the only thing he saw in his friend’s eyes was excitement, and if he put himself in the man’s shoes, he understood why the prospect of leaving home and avoiding being sold off to an ethically challenged organisation which planned to use his DNA for _something,_ was such a preferable option. “I set Jarvis and F.R.I up to wire me a portion of the company’s revenue every few days,” it was definitely not enough for Howard to notice, but enough for him to live comfortably.

 

“I’ll make sure to keep an eye out in case he does realise what’s going on,” Rhodey offered, helping Tony sling the last bag over his shoulder. He flicked a mock salute and Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“I’m not carrying devices, I don’t want to be tracked that easily. But anytime I stop at a town or somewhere with connection, I’ll send you updates.” Tony rocked back and forth on his heels, hesitating for a moment before Rhodey punched his arm and pulled him in for a brief, but sincere, side hug.

 

“You’re a good person Tones, you deserved better than Howard and Obadiah.” The look of aversion that always crossed Tony’s face when things got too heartfelt cropped up again, and Rhodey eased the fresh tension. “And you owe me at least a postcard per year,” Tony smiled at the humour in his friend’s tone.

 

“See ya platypus, don’t keep hacking into encrypted files if you don’t want to harbour runaways.” It was Rhodey’s turn to roll his eyes as Tony walked out of the door and returned the fake salute.

 

\----

 

Tony found his way out of New York and travelled far enough away from populated areas that he was comfortable enough shrugging off his thick jumper and stretching his wings out, smiling as the sun hit his feathers.

 

The first town he found where there was no way anybody would recognise him, was where he decided it was safe enough to plug his flash drive in. He spent four hours hacking his way into HYDRA’s database, and by the end of the night, he figured his nose had permanent lines from how much he had wrinkled it in disgust at what he dug up.

 

There were at least eighty-two failed experiments in which the same serum that mutated him was injected into other ‘subjects,’ as HYDRA deemed them to be. The way they were each affected, ranged from scaly skin all the way to telepathic attributes. Clearly, HYDRA had been looking for a specific mutation, because each of the people, who Tony was going to call the ‘victims,’ were released after barely any time.

 

After Tony had scrolled through the records and hit nineteen-ninety-six, everything went blank. He would have been twenty-six that year, and that was the only relevant thing Tony could think of while he tried to figure out why all the data from that year onwards had been removed.

 

\----

 

_July 6th, 1996._

 

After over eighty failed subjects, the head surgeon was hanging on by a loose thread. If he couldn’t get the serum to create the desired mutation on a subject, he would be kicked to the curb. At this point, he was willing to try almost anything.

 

“I know, you’re disappointed and you think I’m wasting resources, but I’m telling you Sir, this _will_ work.”

 

“You want me to give you the DNA sample from over twenty-five years ago, so we can try to clone the original? Do you realise how much of a risk that is? If it fails, or you mess it up, we would have lost the only sample from the subject who actually mutated the way we wanted them to.” The head surgeon crossed his arms, eyes flicking over to the vault where Anthony Stark’s DNA was stored.

 

“I’m positive this will work, each person’s DNA has a different reaction to the serum, that’s why every subject mutated in separate ways, so if we create our own subject using Stark’s DNA, it will have the same result once we add the serum.” The head surgeon had no other practical option aside from continuing to test on subjects who would no doubt fail.

 

“Fine, but you aren’t leading, you’ve messed up enough over the past twenty-six years, so I’m in charge of this one.”

 

\----

 

_August 10th, 1996._

 

“It took over a month, but it’s done, subject eighty-four is a success.” The head surgeon was holding a new born in his hands, he placed it on a metal bench. The small child had two small appendages protruding from its back, ruffled feathers peeking out under harsh lab lights. They were stubby, but incredibly fluffy, and not well organised. Someone had dressed the baby in a diaper, his head was topped with curls that flicked up and out in every direction against the soft forehead and cheeks. One of the child’s thumbs was slid into its mouth, suckling gently as dark eyelashes fluttered lightly.

 

 

“It’s perfect,” one of the other surgeons pointed out, his finger curling towards the baby’s back. “Can I turn it over, so we can see?” The head surgeon waved a hand and the rest took it as blanket permission to move the child, all immediately scrabbled to get the first access to the tiny wings. “Stop, stop, I’m turning it over, don’t touch the wings yet,” the first surgeon who spoke slid his hand under the baby’s shoulders, his fingers brushed past soft feathers as he rolled the child onto its stomach, pulling out its wings until they were fully unfurled and stretched out across the metal bench.

 

They couldn’t have been more than half a ruler’s length each, and there was no way the baby would be coordinated enough to fly on its own, let alone push away the prying hands which stretched and unstretched the drab wings. One of the surgeons pushed away another gloved hand so he had room to run gentle fingers along the length of the wing, stroking through the feathers and lightly scratching, as if the child was no more than a pet.

 

A small snivel escaped the baby’s mouth, and not soon after came the wailing. The longer the surgeons diverted their attention to carding their fingers through the sensitive feathers, the louder the child whimpered and blubbered, its small fists smacking the metal benchtop with little strength.

 

\----

 

_14 Years Later._

 

Peter jerked awake as the sound of his cage door creaking open echoed throughout the small room. A hand reached in through the top of the cage and presented the familiar water bottle with clouded, grey tinged water swirling around inside.

 

“Drink.” The usual guard said, the patience in his voice was non-existent. Peter shook his head and shifted further back in his cage, careful not to back up into the wall in case another guard managed to pin him against it by holding his wings. “C’mon _birdie,_ I know you don’t wanna keep doing this, but it’s part of routine, and you know what happens if you don’t follow morning routine.”

 

Peter kept his lips together in a harsh line, his teeth grinding against each other as the guard sighed and circled his cage, his eyebrows lowering when the teen shifted away from where he stepped. “You want me to call in for backup? You want one of my other colleagues to come in here and hold you still, like last week? Huh?” Peter said nothing, only winced when the man tried to swipe at him through the narrow bars. “Stop fighting or you won’t get any time before lights out, you want to lose your book for tonight?”

 

The small boy’s hands began trembling slightly, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he slumped, his shoulders dropping and wings wilting minutely in defeat. “Good boy,” the guard praised, grinning as if he had just won an argument. He held the drink bottle out and shook it from side to side, urging Peter to take it and shakily unscrew the cap, so he could tilt it back and sip at the contents.

 

The teen brought the bottle back down to his lap after a few gulps, and the guard frowned, nudging the bottle in warning. “More…” he hissed, watching smugly as Peter’s shaky hands tilted the water back once more. “There we go, how ‘bout I just give you a little hand,” the man muttered as his fingers pushed the bottom of the bottle up higher, spilling more water down into Peter’s throat as he choked slightly at the rapid change in the size of the stream.

 

When the bottle was emptied, and Peter had finished coughing, the guard pulled him out of the cage with a hand under each of his arms, as if he were lifting a toddler. Once the boy’s feet touched the ground, the palm settling on the small of the teen’s back pushed him forward slightly and guided him down the halls.

 

“R - room... fo - four?” Peter asked hopefully, his voice croaky and mildly pained from his daily dosage of the water.

 

“No, room two. You have more skin grafting today.” If it was possible, Peter shoulders hunched even more as he realised he wouldn’t get what he longed for. “Cheer up _chick,_ you haven’t lost your book for the day yet. Just keep your head down, do what the surgeons say, and you’ll get time before lights out.” The teen was led into the second surgery room which he knew like the back of his hand. The surgeons were already pulling on their gloves and waiting for him.

 

“Thank you, agent. Come on eighty-four, you get anaesthetic today.” Peter looked at the floor as he was guided to the metal bench. A latex-covered hand brushed over his left wing and he couldn’t help the involuntary shudder as he was laid down against the table. A mask was pulled and placed over his face, it dug into the bridge of his nose, but he breathed in when one of the surgeons poked at his sternum in signal. He made sure to take a large breath, wary of the times he hadn’t been dosed enough before a surgery.

 

“Very good, in, and in again. Good eighty-four, there you go…”

 

The uncomfortable metal of the benchtop faded away, as did the surgeons words when Peter let himself fall into unconsciousness.

 

\----

 

“Up, come on. Out now, you’re done.” Peter blinked groggily as he felt a hand tapping his cheek, he distantly felt someone slipping out his I.V, but he wasn’t sure of anything in the moment. “Eighty-four, you’re done for the day, go hose off.” Hands on his shoulders helped him up into a sitting position before the guard in charge of his showering draped an arm over his shoulders.

 

“You did good _bird-boy_ , very well done today.” Peter didn’t bother to look up at him, if he had, his drug-infused water would have ended up over the floor as his nausea bubbled dangerously. The guard leaned to the left and the teen’s feet scuffed on the linoleum as he tilted down the hall and was pushed into his showering room. “Right, go toilet, you have five minutes, you know the drill by now.”

 

Peter pulled the thin, blue curtain to give himself as much privacy as possible. He could feel his shaky knees tremoring under his own weight as he turned toward the toilet.

 

When he had finished, he flushed as a signal of completion, and the guard pulled back the curtain, twisting the handle on the wall and turning on the hose to its highest setting. Peter turned his face away just as the cold spray hit his side, the pressure made him stumble slightly but he regained his footing quickly enough to not slip over like he had done many other times.

 

Peter shivered, but ultimately let the water begin to wash away the crusted blood, sweat and iodine staining his bare chest and pants. After all, he would rather be dripping wet and uncomfortable each night until he dried off, over being covered in years’ worth of dirt, blood and chemicals.

 

“Turn,” the man called lazily, tilting the hose away as Peter obediently switched to face the opposite wall, gasping when the water blasted his other side. “Back,” he swivelled and yelped as the water slammed into his shoulder blades, spine and wings. He felt as his feathers began to dampen and grow heavier with the pressure of the extra weight.

 

Because there were a multitude of books focused specifically on birds and types of wings, Peter was very familiar with how water was supposed to roll off his feathers. He had learnt as he grew up, a lot of things about his wings were wrong, the water absorption was because his malnourished state didn’t allow for his feathers to get the proper nutrients and strength, which was what helped them grow. It was the same reason his wings were so tiny, the same simple explanation to why he had never flown before like a real bird.

 

It was why the head surgeon was so angry at him when he never grew strong enough to support his own weight in the air.

 

_“Are you still a new born?! Why aren’t you growing, why are you so damn weak? Huh!” Peter coughed, and his arms gave way as he slapped against the concrete floor of what the guards had called ‘the flight room.’ “Answer me! Filthy avian DNA doesn’t make any difference on you eighty-four, because you’re pathetic either way!”_

_“I - I don’t know… ‘m sorry. P - pl - please lemme keep my book time…” The surgeon scoffed and nudged the small boy’s ribs with the toe of his boot, rolling him slightly onto his side and exposing his left wing._

_“These here,” he drawled, rubbing the heel of his boot against the primary feathers on Peter’s wings. “Useless,” he spat, dragging his foot across the floor and pulling out a few of the feathers as he did so. He looked as disgusted as ever when Peter howled, rolling over onto his stomach and curling his wings up against his back as if he were trying to hide them._

_“Aghh. P – please don’t! It hurts, it hurts!” The boy brought his quaking knees up to his chest and furled in on himself helplessly, not able to do anything even as the surgeon bent down on one knee and peeled his wing back, rubbing his fingers over the bald patch where he had just ripped three of the feathers out. Peter squirmed uncomfortably and whined high in his throat, trying to pull his wing back as he caught the surgeon’s eyes, which were beginning to soften slightly as he took in the small beads of blood that welled up in the places where three feathers had just been._

_“I’m sorry eighty-four… here, shh, shh.” Peter dropped his forehead to the floor and breathed out, pushing away the feeling of bile crawling up his throat as the surgeon danced his gloved fingers over the bone in his wing. “Shh, it’s okay, I’m sorry I lost my temper. You didn’t deserve to lose any of your feathers… I’ll try to stay calmer next time.” The young boy ground his teeth together as latex rubbed against the bald patch in a sickening mockery of what ‘soothing’ was supposed to feel like._

_“I wan’ Ben to take me back to my cage now… m’ sorry I couldn’t fly today.” The surgeon smiled lightly as he accepted the apology and finally moved his fingers away from Peter’s wing._

_“It’s okay chick, you did your best.”_

 

“Face me,” the guard called, having the decency to turn the hose strength down to its average setting. “Try not to breathe for a minute,” he warned as Peter scrunched up his eyes and clamped his mouth shut in response. The water hit his face and it somehow felt much icier than it had when it was drenching the rest of his body. The streams which dripped down his forehead, into his eyes, up his nose and over his mouth, triggered the switch in his brain that fired up old memories, and he spluttered after a moment, wishing the feeling of claustrophobia wouldn’t continue to drench him as much as the water was.

 

“Hey!” Peter reeled as the water grew much more intense and his cheek stung from the sharp and apparent slap he had just been dealt.

 

“O - ow…” he looked up to the guard, who was frowning at him, and he realised he’d faded into another anxiety attack. Peter tried his best to read about them in a psychology book, but some of the long words in biology books still confused him.

 

“Do your hair and then you’re done.” The water came back and fell over his head. Peter reached up shakily and rubbed his scalp with his nails, scratching away crusted blood and flakes of dry skin, even some disinfect from yesterday’s stitches.

 

The water from Peter hair flicked around him as he rubbed his hair harshly to try and finish washing himself before the hose was shut off from the timer. He must have shaken his head too hard because when he looked up, the bottom of the guard’s jeans were lightly soaked.

 

“S - sorry, I didn’t mean t -” His stuttering was roughly cut off as the man tilted the spray down and gripped a fistful of hair at the back of Peter’s neck, tugging down and forcing the boy’s face up, further into the spray.

 

“Disgusting bird water! I have seven hours left in my shift and I have to walk around covered in your mess. Do you know how dirty you are? You’re filth!”

 

Peter gagged as he felt more water crawling back up his throat, if he _had_ eaten that day, there would be solid food coming out of his mouth along with it. The hose water was dripping up his nose at the angle his head was held at, and if the timer hadn’t clicked the stream off, he could have drowned.

 

He dry heaved as his stomach settled, the teen blinked, and his fingernails dug into the grout between the tiles as he caught his breath.

 

He bit his tongue and tried not to tell the guard that his entire body was soaked, and he still had to sit in his cage until it dried overnight. But Peter had learnt to hold back all of his remarks a long time ago. Since he started talking, he had been conditioned not to, unless he was answering direct questions or apologising for something the guards and surgeons believed he had done wrong. The boy knew that as a younger child, he had babbled happily to himself on the regular, all nonsense and unintelligible strings of words, but that habit had been quickly lost as enforced routine forced him to cut any noise out after dark.

 

“Get up,” the man demanded gruffly, tearing his eyes away from the slightly dampened cuffs of his jeans. “Get up or I’ll drag you back to the cell,” he repeated. Peter stood slowly, slipping slightly on the watery tiles.

 

“B - book?” He asked meekly, averting his eyes downward and letting the guard grip his wrist to walk him forward.

 

“I’m gonna get bird flu or something like that, you don’t deserve a bloody book.” Peter’s head snapped up and he shook his head twice, heartbeat pounding in his throat. “If you make noise after lights out from all your stupid crying, _I’m_ the one who gets his head bitten off for taking away book privileges.”

 

The man tugged Peter to the left and by now, the teen had memorised the routes so much that they had been permanently burnt into his mind.

 

“Th - thank you Sir.” The guard didn’t reply, just kept his head facing forward as he led Peter into the library, his hair and clothing still leaving patches of water wherever he stepped.

 

“Choose. You got one minute and that’s it.” Peter knew the drill, as soon as the man let go of his wrist he scrabbled forward to the third bookshelf on the left, two rows up. It was the second to last bookshelf that didn’t contain the books he had already read. His eyes dashed past the spines. If he remembered correctly, last night’s book was a blue hardcover, some sort of research on aquatic life, but he had loved it.

 

His eyes caught the one beside it, a faded red, almost pink cover with a bent spine and cracked, golden lettering. He skimmed the blurb and smiled, even as the guards’ watch beeped from behind him, and he was pulled back towards the door by the waistband of his pants.

 

He read as he walked, letting the guard steer him past the other labs and back to his dog crate cage. “You got…” he looked down at his watch, “thirty-two minutes. Don’t make noise or you’ll regret it.” Peter nodded as his door was opened and the man walked forward to adjust the timer on the lights, before watching the teen carefully as he crawled through the top of his cage and scurried to the back, curling in on himself as he peeled apart the musty pages of the book and began reading feverishly, his eyes rolling across the page as if he would disintegrate as quickly as the book would in a fire if he didn’t finish it before lights out.

 

“T - th - thank you,” he murmured quietly, his small hands clutching the cover of the book as his eyes followed the guard while he closed the door and left the boy on his own.

 

\----

 

The crushing silence would have pressed down on Peter like debris, if it weren’t broken every minute or so by the crinkling of an old page flipping over.

 

It was a poetry book, the small haiku's roamed across the page in patterns to form shapes. The ink wasn’t raised, but Peter still ran his hand over each page, caressing the words that he waited for each day.

 

He got twenty-four pages in before the lights shut out and he was left in the pitch black. The slit at the bottom of his door was opened and a food tray was kicked in a few minutes later. The bowl of brownish-grey sludge barely fit through the bars of his cage, and he had to tip the contents out onto the unwashed tray and scoop it up with his hands, so he could pull it inside his cage and actually consume solid ‘food.’

 

It tasted what Peter imagined his water would taste like if it were boiled and mixed with gelatine. But he couldn’t complain, especially considering the fact that the solid food was one of the things keeping him alive. Once he had scraped the last of the sludge from the serving tray, he pushed it away from his cage and tried his best to clean his hand on the back of his pants.

 

He sighed and rocked back until he laid face up at the bottom of his cage, his knees instinctively pulling up to his chest and his arms lifting to cover his face and head. He pulled his wings flush against himself, trying to use them as a means of warmth, but failing miserably as they were, like always, too small to provide anything beneficial.

 

Sometimes on lonely nights, Peter considered humming to himself, but he only ever resorted to that if it had been a _bad_ day. He had read about the risk versus reward principal in a book once, and on most regular nights, Peter decided the risk of punishment for making noise after lights out, was not worth the reward of some white noise to drift off too.

 

It didn’t usually take the teen longer than half an hour to completely fall asleep, because most of the time he was so overtired or exhausted from his routine during the day, that staying awake wasn’t a viable option. Peter wasn’t a stranger to nightmares, but he did seem to have trouble finding his way back to sleep after them. Normally his dreams only consisted of the things he had read in all the books, but a few times he would dream of something large and fiery, tearing through the halls in a blaze of ash and soot, its wings melting the walls of his cage like a chocolate bar in the sun.

 

_“You are safe now, Peter. I’ll take you under my wing.”_

 

Those nights confused him the most. He had never heard anyone say his name, aside from himself and a single guard who was long gone by now, but he preferred not thinking about it that often, it was too painful.

 

He always woke up before his fingers could stretch out enough to touch the wings of dark embers mixed with galaxies and raging fires which painted his face with a soft, golden hue.

 

Peter wasn’t sure how long he slept at night, but he knew each morning was a struggle to force himself out of the cage. His joints and bones popped, shuddering back into place, groaning and aching in protest of how Peter stayed curled on the floor each night.

 

And so, the cycle of routine began again. Peter woke up, still stiff from the floor, a bottle of cloudy, drugged water was thrusted at him. He was walked to the operating theatre or experiment rooms, either put under, or kept awake for the agony. Then he was hosed down, taken to the library and given a minute to choose a book, assuming he hadn’t lost his book privileges for the day, and escorted back to his cage. From there, he read, the lights would shut off, his bowl of greyish sludge was shoved in, he had to reach through the bars and scrape up the slop with his hands, chewing slowly and grimacing as the aftertaste burnt his tongue and then he slept until it began again.

 

Sometimes, Peter wondered if the surgeons and guards weren’t that far off target when they called him an animal…

 

\----

 

It took Tony a whole second day to figure out how to find the missing files. He tried almost everything he could think of before asking Jarvis for his opinion.

 

Of course, being the snarky AI that Tony has programmed, the only helpful suggestion he offered was to _‘think outside the box, Sir.’_

 

After rolling his eyes so much that Tony could probably see his brain, he did actually take Jarvis’ advice. In the end, he gave up on looking for the files on the server, and instead, he tried to trace any paper versions.

 

He had to hack into each printer stored at the HYDRA facility, but after a few hours of painstakingly gruelling and repetitive work, he had scrounged up majority of the information he was looking for.

 

“Oh my god…” he murmured to himself, running a hand through his hair as his teeth worked on his lower lip in worry. “How the hell - no, no that can’t be true, F.R.I.D.A.Y, check the maths and figure out if this is even possible.” _Because there’s no way this could be true, right?_

 

“It is indeed possible, and if I may offer an analysis, I believe it is very plausible for you to have a -”

 

“No! No, don’t - just… just don’t say the words yet, I need time to process this.” He swivelled in his chair and rubbed his face, his stress leaking through obviously. “What am I gonna do if this is real… if - if _he’s_ real?”

 

“I would suggest getting in contact with him,” F.R.I.D.A.Y said in his ear. Tony blew out a long breath before letting his forehead rest against the wood of his desk. This wasn’t a movie, he wouldn’t go on a journey to find someone who may or may not be… he couldn’t even think the words, _how was he ever supposed to say them_?

 

“And how am I supposed to do that? If everything on here is true… he’s still - he would still be there now… Am I going crazy? There’s no way I can do this, not when there are people looking for me too, right?” Tony fumbled through the several pages of information that took him almost forty-eight hours to dig up, not bothering to wait for a reply.

 

_Subject: 84._

_Name: N/A.  
*Began to call itself ‘Peter’ and refuses to comply with regulation names._

_Age: 14 years._

_DNA: Created from Original Subject’s DNA, (Anthony Stark)._

_Mutation: Wings and small percentage of Avian DNA._

_Intellectual Capacity: Understands basic to complex scientific and mathematical concepts, is unaware of social normalities, learns new concepts easily, is of high intelligence._

_Compliancy: Has an aversion to new employees, will revert to physical defensive methods if threat is apparent, has difficulty following morning routine, becomes aggressive when anaesthetics are not issued for surgical procedures, is overly protective of feathers and refuses to be pet or pampered, often makes attempts to hide or escape when endurance tests are administered, will stay compliant if placed in room four or given singular book before lights out, reverts to violence when put in tank one or two, often experiences anxiety attacks or panic attacks, has adverse reactions to being compared with birds, can be left up to four days alone at one time._

 

Tony ran a hand through his hair worriedly and absently tapped his earpiece that connected him to F.R.I.D.A.Y and Jarvis. “ _I can’t leave him in there…_ ” Tony mumbled quietly, staring at the number on the page intently.

 

Fourteen. The human made from his DNA, his _child_ was fourteen years old. That number was somehow equally as big as it was small. On one hand, it was such a young age, painfully youthful, and yet, fourteen years was such a horrible amount of time to be locked up at HYDRA. If he was a ‘test-tube baby,’ there was a large possibility that the boy, Peter, had never even heard of him. It would make perfect sense for HYDRA to keep the kid oblivious to the fact that he was made from Tony Stark’s DNA.

 

“Jarvis, how long is a flight to Russia?” He tapped a pen against his knee and thought about how insane it was that only two days ago, he was still at home living with Howard, and now he was flying to Russia, to rescue a child he didn’t even know was his.

 

“Approximately ten hours.” Tony let the AI’s book him a normal, public flight as he printed off a fake I.D and started picturing what a smaller clone of himself would look like.

 

The flight was booked for that evening, and although he wasn’t overly fond of how many security scans there were at an airport, he couldn’t take his time and find another way to Russia. Not when he had a very possibly traumatised child to save.

 

Not when he had a _son_ who needed him.


	2. One Went In, Two Came Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony needs to save his kid and Peter needs to see the outside world at some point, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this and it's been so much fun working on this with Shoyzz!
> 
> And massive kudos to Delphinium2 for proof reading this chapter for me - you're amazing, I love you <3
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave all the comments letting us know what you think!
> 
> <3

Tony anxiously tapped his fake passport against his knee, his leg bouncing erratically as he watched the screen slowly drop towards his flight number. He didn’t know why he was exerting so much energy into being worried, his flight was ten hours long anyway, his apparent son would be alone, locked away in HYDRA for another half day regardless.

 

He had done the math already. He would land at three in the morning, make it to the base within another hour or so, and then figure out the rest of his plan from there. _Winging it_ wasn’t exactly his style, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice in the matter. The place would most likely be crawling with guards, and Tony had absolutely no idea where the poor kid would be held in the facility.

 

There was no use in trying to plot out an idea for the rescue mission, which is definitely what he was calling it now.

 

“ _Flight four-one-eight nine to Russia is now available for boarding_.” Tony perked up, checking his flight number before shouldering his duffel bags and moving towards the terminal. He began mentally preparing himself for a long, tedious journey of sitting in an uncomfortable chair and eating questionable airplane food.

 

Normally, he didn’t have an issue with flights, but that was because he always flew first class and had the ability to stretch out his wings as long as the small curtain could cover his seat from prying eyes of other passengers.

 

But now, squashed up against a chair, unable to unfurl his appendages, he could feel his wings stiffening up uncomfortably already.

 

\----

 

While this was happening, Peter was curled up at the back of his cage, his eyelashes fluttering as the tell-tale sound of booted footsteps neared his small room.

 

“Get up, you’ve got another feather extraction today. _Move it_.” The guard called, kicking the side of Peter’s cage, watching him blearily taking the bottle of cloudy, grey water in his hands and tipping it back with a revolted look on his face. “Move, move, move!” The man declared as he hauled Peter up through the top of the cage by his elbow, walking him forward hurriedly and not caring as the small boy stumbled over his own shaky feet.

 

Peter looked to the ground, watching the bland sections of pale, grey linoleum washing past him as he was led into the surgery room and hooked up to the familiar monitors and machines. He tried his best to not look at the bench which held the surgery tools, but he knew what a feather extraction entailed.

 

Five feathers from each wing, pulled out by the gloved hands of the surgeons and sealed in an airtight bag to be examined at a later time. It was one of the shortest ‘surgeries’ he dealt with, but it was one of the most painful.

 

His wings were sensitive, any time someone would touch his wings, the sensation was so crisp and sharp that it often made him nauseous from the overload of it. New feathers growing back in was always the worst, they came in extra sensitive, meaning if they were damaged or plucked again, it was excruciating.

 

“Spread them,” one of the surgeons demanded, watching impatiently as Peter was helped up onto the metal bench. The boy shakily parted his wings, knowing that he had no other choice unless he wanted them to be opened by force. He sighed for the brief moment where he had the control, his wings spread out wide and nothing restricting them. But then a set of gloved hands was pushing down and Peter felt the familiar sensation of the tips of his wings being taped down to the bench, preventing him from closing them back up.

 

He didn’t even know if there was an anaesthetic which could numb his wings, but if there was – God he wished he could have it.

 

Peter bit down on the inside of his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut, his nails scratched against the surface of the metal. He felt his ribs digging in against the bench, but he pressed his cheek down against it and took a deep breath.

 

_He could push through a feather extraction, after all – he had every other month since he could remember_.

 

Four hours away, as the first feather was torn from the tip of Peter’s wing, Tony had just managed to convince himself to relax.

 

\----

 

The flight landed on time, and Tony rushed through the rest of the Russian airport before hailing a cab and getting as close as possible to where the HYDRA base must have been concealed.

 

It was surrounded by dense forest on all sides, and because it was a little past four thirty in the morning and pitch black, Tony was relieved that he had found a good flashlight at the stores in the airport. But he was happiest about the fact that he could now shrug off his constricting jacket and stretch out his wings.

 

He walked through the foliage, the wind rustling through his feathers, he focused on staying quiet to be on the safe side. It was cold enough that the flashlight beam caught his breaths as they rose. He pulled the sides of his fluffy hat down over his ears, shivering as the wind crept up the sleeves of his heavy coat.

 

He was almost _eager_ to find the base, and Tony found himself hoping he could snag some warmer clothing from the building if he found time. He had a small scanner which buzzed quietly when it picked up heat signatures a little over an hour into his trek.

 

The base was smaller than he had imagined, only three stories with two of them being basement levels. There was one signature in what Tony assumed was the front office, and the rest seemed to be on the other two levels of the facility.

 

He had no weapons on him, and he didn’t exactly have an excuse for showing up to a HYDRA base at five in the morning, so that single, unguarded man in the front office would have to be the best and only option.

 

Tony pulled a wire out from the heat signature tracker and twisted it back around to loop through the opposite way. He reversed the charge and tugged at a few more loose parts before clicking the activator tentatively.

 

Blue sparks fizzled from one of the live wires and he grinned. He carefully folded his wings away, tucking them back under the large jacket which concealed them so well. He rolled his shoulders back and blew out another breath before stepping out from the treeline and waltzing confidently towards the front door.

 

“This is private property, you’re an unauthorised guest and I need you to exit the premises, effective immedia – _ah_!” Tony didn’t hesitate to jab the makeshift taser into the neck of the guard sitting blandly at front reception. The man’s low yowl of surprise faded as soon as he slumped out of his chair and hit the ground.

 

The all-black uniform looked relatively plain. It consisted of pants with a belt holding an actual taser, as well as a simple, long-sleeved shirt matched with a jacket built for the Russian winter.

 

Luckily, it fit Tony perfectly.

 

\----

 

Peter felt dizzy with the overwhelming and raw discomfort as the tape was peeled away and he was walked back through to the showers and his cage. He never got books on feather extraction day, the test was too short to justify the reward.

 

He padded back down the hall, shivering as the water from his hair dripped down the back of his neck. After the guard lifted the lid to his cage, Peter winced as he clambered back in and crawled to the back corner as he did every day.

 

“Keep it quiet,” the guard grunted uninterestedly as he left. The door swung shut behind him and Peter leant his head against the sides of the cage, sighing quietly before sinking down onto the floor and curling into a tight ball to keep the heat.

 

He slowly began drifting, his lips parched and his body shivering with silent tremors, as he fell into a light sleep.

 

The guard didn’t bother to wake him up when his food was slid beside the cage, but the lights shut off and Peter stayed curled on his side far into the early hours of the morning.

 

\----

 

Tony stayed under the radar as he wandered through the halls of the facility. He didn’t see any other guards, but he did duck into a storage cupboard to find a uniform which might give him a higher level of clearance then a receptionist or guard.

 

There was a white lab coat hanging from the hook on the back of the door. Tony pulled off the guard’s jacket but kept it draped over his arm, just in case it got too cold back out in the forest, or he needed to switch back to the guard’s uniform.

 

He trailed through the first basement level cautiously, slipping open the slit in each door which was presumably for feeding trays to check for anybody to save, or anything to help in general.

 

Tony flinched when he thought about how many people had been in the boy’s place before him. There must have been others, but the reports hadn’t detailed anybody other than his apparent son.

 

He sighed wearily and jogged down to the lowest level. It was three in the morning, and he assumed the base would be quiet during those hours, so when he passed by a pair of guards standing against the wall and fiddling with a radio. Tony steeled himself and kept his face tilted away from the two men before finally managing to take a sharp left out of their view. They hadn’t seemed to have given him a second thought, which was ideal.

 

He leaned against one of the last doors in the hall, looking up to the ceiling and taking a breath. _How would he ever find this kid?_

 

Tony worked away at the inside of his cheek, thinking until his eyebrows scrunched up.

 

“Where are you at, kid?” He murmured, checking the slit through the door he had been leaning against. There was nothing in the room, and he grew more concerned as the number of doors in the final hallway to search through dwindled.

 

He pressed his forehead against the next door before he slid across the small slot, he bent down to look through, and finally there was something other than a blank wall that caught his eye.

 

On the left side of the room, almost in the corner, sat a cage styled as a typical dog crate. He blinked, peering further in as he saw a hint of something living. It was a small flicker of dark brown fur, and he frowned as he realised HYDRA could have been experimenting on an innocent animal as well as a human.

 

He twisted the handle and raised an eyebrow as the door opened without resistance. _Assumingly whatever was in that cage wasn’t seen as much of a threat_.

 

Tony stepped past the doorframe and pushed the door closed as quietly as he could manage. The room faded to pitch black as the light from the hallway was shut out. Tony pulled out his flashlight and pointed it around the space.

 

He could hear soft breaths coming from the cage at the far back of the room, and he approached wearily, hyperaware of the taser on his belt if anything went wrong.

 

He rounded the cage, getting more and more concerned as what he had previously assumed had been fur… looked increasingly more like strands of curly hair.

 

“Hello…?” He whispered into the darkness of the room, squinting through the lack of light. He froze as he finally stepped close enough to angle the torch beam into the cage.

 

There was a _child_ in there.

 

A kid that couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve at the most. He was curled up on his side, cheek resting on his elbows and knobbly knees pulled up into his chest. A soaked, plain shirt lay stretched out on the other side of the cage, leaving the small boy in only a stained pair of grey boxer shorts. His eyes were closed, his eyebrows scrunched in painful discomfort and his nose twitching every few seconds.

 

_He’s sleeping_ , Tony realised sadly. _This poor, neglected child had been left to sleep in a cage_ …

 

The boy looked so young, so _hurt_ , and yet Tony knew the kid was his own. The dark, chocolate curls, black lashes resting softly against starkly pale cheeks and lean, scrawny physique was undeniably similar to his own as a child.

 

Putting aside the ache of his own guilty conscience, Tony could see dark patches of bruising littered across the boy’s exposed skin. He was stained green and yellow from contusions which looked months old. There were poorly healed scabs and scratches across the expanse of sickly pale flesh, and Tony wondered how often the kid ever got proper sun.

 

Tony could see how damp the boy was, water was dripping ever so slowly from his overgrown bangs and collecting in a small puddle beneath him.

 

_This child is sleeping in a puddle at the bottom of a dog crate_ , Tony thought to himself bitterly.

 

But none of what he saw could capture his attention as much as the two wings folded over and covering the boy like a blanket.

 

They were underdeveloped, probably the size that Tony’s had been when he was between three and five years old. The feathers were dull and colourless, brittle and frail. Some of them looked so newly grown in and thin, that they were almost transparent. They were tinted a copper-tinged brown-grey colour, and were far from healthy.

 

As a whole, the kid’s wings were weak, obviously undersized and they didn’t seem to be keeping him warm at all, judging by the goose bumps covering his small frame. He was shivering and each of his joints stuck out skeletally from undernourishment.

 

Tony felt his heart fracturing as he looked at the tiny child – _his_ child – who had obviously been mistreated and neglected his entire life. He looked so pained and scared, even in sleep his body language was submissive and fearful.

 

Tony took a deep, shuddering breath to steady and prepare himself before crouching down next to the bars of the cage. “Hey, kid,” he whispered, tilting the flashlight around until he was sure it wasn’t shining directly in the boy’s face as he began to stir.

 

He found the latch to the top of the cage, unclipping it and pulling the hatch back. “Kid,” he said slightly louder, flinching when his voice caused the boy to jolt awake.

 

His eyes were wide and terrified as he saw Tony, he scrambled away until his back and head slammed against the wall of the cage, the noise echoing throughout the small room. Tony stared back, his mouth falling agape as he saw the massive hazel irises gleaming in the glinting light of the flashlight.

 

He held his hands out placatingly, shuffling back from the cage. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you…” he promised, smiling gently to hopefully ease the kid’s mind.

 

“N - new ones ‘lways say that,” the boy whispered, his voice was broken and unused. He didn’t meet Tony’s eyes.

 

“No, I’m different. I’m not a doctor,” he pressed, his fingers itching to peel away the lab coat. “I’m like you,” he admitted softly. The white fabric fell back slightly, enough for Tony to stretch the collar of his shirt down and tilt his back towards the boy. “I’m exactly like you,” he repeated, his wings unfurling and pushing against the guard’s shirt.

 

Tony saw the kid’s mouth open in shock as he saw the feathers peeking out from beneath his shirt.

 

\----

 

The new surgeon seemed gentle, but Peter knew better than to trust first impressions. Although… that was before the man shrugged away his lab coat and turned so that he could see whatever was leaking from his shirt.

 

Unlike his own, the man’s feathers were colourful and solid, no transparency anywhere. They were jet black like a raven until the tips, which were streaked with speckled shades of indigo, deep blue and what he imagined the sky to look like.

 

Peter felt his eyes widening and his jaw dropping as he saw the visible shape of a massive set of wings and the truly enrapturing colours staining the man’s feathers. They were the most colourful thing that Peter had ever seen in his entire life, the closest he ever got to seeing colour was the crimson which he bled after a mistake or a particularly invasive surgery.

 

“See? I’m just like you, kid.” The man said, pulling the lab coat back on and standing up. Peter shrunk back slightly at the sudden movement, but the man just leaned over the cage and stretched out his hand through the opening.

 

Peter stared up at the hand, waiting for the man to grab him and haul him out as it normally worked, but he seemed to be… waiting for him to reach out and take that hand himself?

 

_That can’t be right_.

 

“Come on, we’re getting out of this place,” the man spoke with determination. Peter didn’t want to disobey orders… but he didn’t believe it wasn’t a trick yet either.

 

He shakily lifted his arm, his fingers trembling as he tentatively accepted the offered hand. The man smiled warmly, and he held Peter’s hand, pulling him up to his feet. “Here,” he murmured as his other hand reached out to take Peter’s opposite bicep, steadying him as he stepped out of his cage slowly, unsurely. “Are you okay?” He asked, Peter looked down at himself.

 

He felt better without seeing the normal sweat, grime and dried blood smeared across him, but he still felt exposed without his shirt, which was still soaking wet at the bottom of his cage. He lifted his arms and wrapped them around his torso, his wings deflating as he tucked them flat against his back, feeling more uncovered by the second.

 

The man must have noticed, because he unfolded a guard’s jacket that had been draped over his arm and moved to tuck it around Peter’s shoulders.

 

He jerked backward, shaking his head defiantly and staring ahead with wide eyes. He wasn’t going to break any rules until he was certain the new man was nice like the other guard had been all those years ago.

 

“N – not allowed t – to,” he whispered, curling in on himself and hoping that if this had been a test, he had passed. He turned back towards his cage and gingerly leaned back in, picking up his shirt and wringing it out before pulling it over his head. The man watched him with a worried look, he almost seemed… sympathetic.

 

“Okay,” the man said softly, glancing back towards the door. “You don’t have to do anything you wouldn’t like to.” Peter blinked confusedly, tilting his head curiously. “I’m going to get you out of here, you don’t deserve to be caged up like that, alright?”

 

“Yes Sir,” Peter nodded, replying stiffly as if he had been taught to say the words. He didn’t notice the man’s throat bobbing as he swallowed dryly.

 

“L – let’s just get you out of here, kid.” The man held out his hand again, letting Peter decide whether he wanted to take it or not. He wasn’t used to the way the new man was acting, he normally just let the guards grip his upper arm and drag him to the surgery room. Maybe that was what the new man wanted.

 

\----

 

Tony watched as the boy stepped towards him and held out his arm before pushing it into his grasp. He frowned in confusion as he looked down to where he was now holding the child’s upper arm. “Ah… o – okay,” he said unsurely, wrapping his hand gently around the boy’s arm and guiding him towards the door, making sure to let him walk at his own pace.

 

He turned off his flashlight and tucked it away into the pocket of the lab coat before cracking open the door and checking the hallway for any other guards. According to the heat signatures before he entered the building, there was only a total of eight other people in the building, minus the guard who he tasered by the front desk.

 

Tony was swift as he began walking with the boy at his side, but he was tactical at the same time. He listened out for other voices or footsteps, and they managed to make it to the stairwell leading up to the first basement level without anyone seeing.

 

They were about halfway up the stairs when the door clanged ahead of them. There was a guard lighting a cigarette by the balcony, and Tony felt Peter tensing up in reaction as his head bowed and his eyes dropped to the floor. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, “I’m not going to let anybody hurt you.”

 

He continued moving, knowing that if they turned back to the bottom floor now, they would never make it out. “I’ll make sure you’re safe, kid,” he promised sincerely.

 

The man flicking ashes over the railing had definitely noticed them by that point, and he straightened up as Tony and the boy got to the door.

 

“Hey,” he barked, “what are you doing?”

 

Tony opened his mouth to reply, but the guard spoke again. “Didn’t you read his file, new guy? Always restrain eighty-four when you’ve never worked with it before. It’s a simple rule, how hard is that to follow?”

 

_Eighty-four?_ Tony wondered silently.

 

“Uhh… he’s been real cooperative, there’s no need for restraints.” Tony tried to remind himself that in the lab coat, dressed as a surgeon, he was supposed to be a security guard’s superior. “I appreciate the advice, but we’re good here,” he snapped, lifting his chin as if to challenge the man to speak back.

 

“Not my rules, that’s what the boss wants,” the guard replied, sneering as the boy hunched in on himself further. “If you don’t have cuffs, then you use mine. Don’t keep escorting it around without restraints, that thing’s dangerous.” Tony grit his teeth, glowering when he heard the guard calling the child a ‘thing.’

 

He scowled when a pair of handcuffs was dropped into his hand. “Hands,” the guard demanded, roughly gripping the boy’s wrist when he immediately held out both of them, like a trained animal.

 

Tony kept his mouth shut as the guard tightened the cuffs, leaving them on a setting where the metal looked to be biting into the poor kid’s skin. He ground his teeth together when the guard grinned proudly. “I bet you’re about to have a fun day, _chick_ , you know what it means when you’re up this early. Enjoy the treadmill.”

 

“I think that’s enough,” he spat darkly as the child let out a small, frightened sound at the guards’ words. “Come on,” he said more calmly to the boy, gently placing his two hands over his shoulders and leading him past the guard and onto the first basement level.

 

As soon as the guard was out of ear shot, Tony spun the boy around and crouched before him. “I’m so sorry, kid. I swear I’m not going to hurt you, it’s just till we get you out of the building,” he rambled as he loosened the cuffs until they were so large that they would slip off if the child really wanted them away from him. He smoothed down the back of the boy’s hair, smiling sadly at the scared look in his eyes. “One more floor, just one more,” he chanted, beginning to shuffle through the hallways as quickly as possible without raising suspicion.

 

“M’ sorry,” the boy panted “p – please. No – n – no treadmill.” Tony had felt the kid’s body trembling since the guard, and he only moved faster, checking the next stairwell until he was sure no other guards could have been lurking.

 

“Yeah, no treadmill buddy, I promise. You’re not going on a treadmill.” He helped the child up the steps, but he slowed as they first opened the door. “We’re almost there,” Tony said eagerly, ushering the kid forward and ridding him of the handcuffs as he moved towards the front door.

 

“I – is this real,” the boy asked, his voice disbelieving and almost hysterical as Tony turned to see a watery look in his eyes.

 

\----

 

The front door was glass, and as Peter stumbled forward with the man, he caught a glimpse of dark green treetops and orange wood scattered across a bed of pine needles.

 

“Of course it’s real,” the man answered, taking Peter’s hand and tugging him forward, shoving open the door and leading him into the outside world for the first time in his life.

 

Peter froze, his eyes blowing wide as he gasped audibly. There was a massive clearing surrounding the building, and he could see the treeline only about five hundred metres away.

 

He felt his heartbeat picking up and pounding in his throat, his face flushed with his body and the wind whipped his hair back and forth with a chill that somehow felt invigorating rather than numbing. “Come on,” the man yelled, a large grin on his face as he began running with his hand still holding Peter’s encouragingly.

 

“Th – this… outside…” Peter choked out, the wind swallowing his words and blowing them away before anybody other than him could hear them. A memory pierced the quickly inflating excitement and Peter cried out, skidding to a halt and immediately trying to scrabble backwards. “N – no! Th – the line!” He wailed, shaking his head when the man only continued guiding him forward towards the tree line. “Wait! Please, ple –”

 

As Peter’s foot inched back into line with the man’s, a white-hot pain shot through his veins, something burnt his eardrums at a high pitch and he felt grass under his body as he writhed. He screamed in pain, tears flooding beneath his closed eyes. He tore at the ground, his nails scraping black earth up as he clawed his way backward. He tasted metal in his mouth as he continued to shriek in agony, the electricity twisting the world around him until everything became a hazy blur.

 

With one last attempt, Peter sobbed as he threw himself back over the restriction. The pain fizzled out, but he still continued to twitch and wail painfully.

 

“- id? Kid?! You’re gonna be okay, I’m getting rid of it, I swear!” Peter felt hands on his chest and neck, lifting him against something warm and supportive. His head lolled back, and he moaned as someone’s fingers probed the chip preventing him from passing the invisible barrier line. “I’ll be quick, I’m going to get this out, but you have to let me dig it out. Okay? Everything’s going to be okay…”

 

Peter sobbed as he realised the screaming pitches in his ears were the facilities alarm system, alerting everyone in the building that he had managed to escape. They didn’t have much time, and he knew that he would be brutally punished for even attempting to run.

 

“They’re coming…” he warned, shuddering when the man pulled a small scalpel from the pocket of the lab coat he was wearing.

 

“I know, buddy. I swear this’ll be quick, I promise. Please don’t try to fight me, I don’t want to hurt you.” The man whispered hurriedly as he cupped Peter’s cheek, gently tilting his neck back so that he could see the lump where the chip rested under the surface of Peter’s skin.

 

“S’ okay…” he mumbled, twitching when the incision was finally made. He could feel the stickiness of his own blood against the side of his neck.

 

“I’m done, I’m done. It’s okay,” the man gasped, relief in his voice. “We have to go, I’m sorry. Can you run?” He asked, rushing to help Peter to his feet.

 

“Yes Sir.” Peter saw the man look sadly at him, but then there was a noise as the door slammed open, the glass shattering behind them. He couldn’t help but whimper as he saw the fury painting the now fully armed guards rushing out from the facility. “I don’t wanna go back!” He cried, stumbling when the man grabbed his hand and began sprinting for the treeline.

 

“I won’t let them! I swear you’re going to be okay, just stay by my side,” the man yelled back, dropping in behind Peter as if he were covering him from the guards. “You’re nearly there, keep going!”

 

Peter saw the trees getting closer, and the scent of pine needles filled his nose as he sucked in air. He heard the man behind him, still yelling encouragements as he picked up the pace and met Peter’s pace as the both of them broke the tree line.

 

Peter felt branches slicing up his shirt as he ran past them, and thorns were piercing his feet, but he couldn’t care less. He could hear actual birds chirping hysterically and saw insects buzzing out of his way. He jumped over a fallen branch and saw the man beside him doing the same. “There’s an old landslide up ahead in a few hundred metres, just don’t look back!”

 

Peter yelped as he heard one of the guards taking a shot behind them, and soon enough the entire group of them were firing at him and the man. “We’re almost there!” Peter sped up as the man beside him did, and he watched in awe as he saw the man tearing away his lab coat and tying it around his waist as he maintained his speed.

 

From the slits in the back of his shirt, Peter watched as the man’s wings unfurled. They were massive, at almost five metres all together. The midnight black fading to streaks of blue and indigo were only the outer feathers. On the inside of his wings were a deep crimson-scarlet which faded outward into soft orange hues. Peter gaped as he saw the flecks of gold which were speckled across the man’s feathers.

 

The wings were like two opposite sets. One side was as black as midnight, and the other burned like a raging fire. Peter had never seen anything more stunning in his entire life.

 

A rogue branch snapped him out of his stupor, he stumbled awkwardly as he realised he had fallen behind the man in his effort to admire the sight of his wings.

 

“Come on! Jump with me,” the man yelled, pointing ahead to where Peter could see a massive drop off where a section of land must have fallen away years beforehand.

 

It was a big enough drop to shatter someone’s legs if they fell, not to mention the collection of branches and stones that jutted out and up from below.

 

The man wasn’t slowing down, in fact he only seemed to be speeding up the closer he got to the edge. Peter realised what he wanted…

 

\----

 

The two of them were so close, one jump and he would have saved his biological son from a lifetime of experiments and torture. The wind was rustling his shirt and he could feel how secure the lab coat was tied around his waist. Tony thanked his past self for cutting slits in the back of his heavy coat, because as he unfolded his wings and threw himself off the edge of the cliff, he had never felt more alive in his life.

 

The wind caught his feathers and he twirled upward, laughing as he broke the tree tops and saw the HYDRA base almost a full kilometre away. The shots in the forest sounded so distant now, he imagined them to be little foam bullets that children played with. He turned to face the boy, wondering how he was faring with such underdeveloped wings.

 

He wasn’t there.

 

Just the broken remnant of his screams echoing from the drop off in the forest.

 

“Kid!?” Tony screamed back, tucking his wings away and letting himself drop back through the tree tops. He sunk below the line of the landslide until he was slightly below the big drop, sweeping his wings in broad strokes to keep himself in place. “Kid, where are you?!” He tried again, looking down as fright consumed him for a horrible second, worrying that the boy had fallen before he could unfurl his wings.

 

“Please, Sir!”

 

Tony snapped his head up towards the sound of the boy’s screams. He caught sight of the child, crouched by the edge of the drop off with tears streaming down his face. The two of them looked at each other, Tony’s heart filling with sorrow as he saw the devastated look on the boy’s face. “Please, _please_! Sir, please!”

 

“Fly to me! We have to go!” Tony cried, growing increasingly more nervous as the gunshots grew louder. “You’re going to get shot! Get out of there!” He yelled, pulling his arms back and ushering for the boy to fly to him.

 

The boy stared at Tony with tears streaming down his face. His mouth opened, and he choked out a small sob.

 

“I – I _can’t_ ,” he whimpered.

 

“Yes, you can! Look, I know it’s scary, but you gotta hurry.” Peter wailed, stretching his arms out and making a grabby motion. A bullet whizzed past him and hit the collapsed wall of mud and pine needles beside Tony. “Come on, kid - you have to go, now!” The boy’s wings wilted against his body and he bit his lip before finally speaking.

 

“I can’t fly! Th – this is my first time ever being outside…” Tony stayed quiet for a moment, still pumping his wings up and down. A stray bullet hit the trunk of a tree standing a few feet away from the child, and he flicked into action.

 

“Okay, that’s… that’s okay. Just jump and I’ll catch you, I swear.” Tony moved closer to the edge of the landslide, he stretched out his arms and watched the boy’s every move.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, moving as close to the edge as he could. “I… I’m… my wings, they’re not strong enough.” Tony smiled sadly.

 

“I know, it’s okay, kid.” He took a breath, moving even closer and feeling as the tips of his wings scraped against the sides of the cliff on every downward stroke. “You need to jump, you can trust me.”

 

“Okay,” the boy called, determination set on his young face, surprising Tony. A third bullet pinged the ground directly beside the boy’s foot.

 

It seemed to spur him on, because one second his feet were firmly planted and the next, he was throwing himself off the cliff. His eyes were squeezed shut and the wind whipped his hair all around, his curls wild as he sunk downward.

 

Tony surged upward, reaching up and bracing himself to catch the boy’s whole-body mass. He was seconds away from catching the child when the armed guards reached the edge of the cliff, beginning to aim down at the two of them. He heard a gasp as his fingers finally made contact, gripping the kid’s arms and torso like it was life or death, which it _was_.

 

Tony expected the weight to be an issue, but the boy weighed even less than his two duffel bags, which was worrying.

 

“H - hollow bones,” the boy admitted quietly as Tony began navigating through the trees, zigzagging as best he could to dodge the bullets still chasing them.

 

“I know, me too, but you’re still smaller than you should be,” Tony pointed out. He pulled the boy closer to his chest, tucking an arm behind his back and cupping his head. It occurred to him then, that he didn’t know anything about the boy. “What’s your name, kid?”

 

“Uh… they call me eighty-four,” he answered softly. “But I’ve always wanted to be Peter.” Tony smiled, his lips curving at the edges as Peter’s head nudged slightly closer.

 

“I’m Tony, and I’ll call you Peter because you aren’t an experiment number.” From against Tony’s chest, Peter smiled.

 

“Thank you,” he murmured. “You’re one of the first people to call me Peter.” The boy’s fingers gripped the back of Tony’s shirt tightly, his legs dangled over the ground.

 

“I’m going to break through the treetops, so they can’t see us anymore, okay?” Tony angled upward, still mindful of the men blindly shooting through the forest, hoping to hit the two of them. “Get ready!” He warned, throwing an arm over Peter’s head to protect him from the branches that snapped and crackled loudly as Tony’s wings crashed through the trees and broke into the sky.

 

He whooped loudly, continuing upward until the wind grew the strongest and he could glide beneath the clouds.

 

“Woah…” Peter breathed, looking over Tony’s shoulder to see the mass expanse of forest that spread out for miles until the HYDRA base was barely a speck in the distance. “It’s - it’s _perfect_ ,” he said in disbelief.

 

“You’ve never been outside…” Tony stated with sadness in his voice. “You haven’t even seen the moon before?” He thought of how much Peter would have missed out on, how many things he had never seen.

 

“Only in books,” Peter said despairingly. “Once I saw the clouds from the skylight in the surgery room, but not much, just until I was given the anaesthetic.” Tony swallowed, his feathers rustling in the wind. “I’ve only ever been inside HYDRA, never anywhere else.” Tony ground his teeth together, his arm tightening around the boy.

 

“Well, I guess I’ll have to change that then,” he said enticingly. He felt Peter looking up and around them every few seconds, his chest expanding with every small gasp of wonder. “You’re out of that cage now,” Tony pointed out. “You’re free.”

 

Peter smiled, turning his head up and feeling the sensation of sun on his face and wind in his hair. The cool air was a shock to his system, but he knew nothing in the world would ever compare to that moment. Every time he closed his eyes, the colours brightened, and the sun grew stronger. His eyes dripped tears and he was clutching Tony tighter than what could have been comfortable, but neither of them cared in the slightest.

 

“I am,” he whispered into the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And everyone give Shoyzz MAJOR props for her amazing art! <3
> 
>  
> 
> Her tumblr is @Shoyzz-Art and mine is @Agib-2002 - but don't forget about @Delphinium2 because she's the best!  
> <3


	3. I Trust You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this and it's been so much fun working on this with Shoyzz!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave all the comments letting us know what you think!
> 
> <3

Tony felt the little heat radiating off the boy in his arms. The kid, Peter, had his arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders, his legs curled up and pressed between his stomach and Tony’s chest. His feathers were rustling in the wind, and yet they were so weak from all the years of malnutrition and mistreatment.

 

Tony sighed quietly, closing his eyes briefly as his wings continued to pump and the nest of curls beneath his chin tickled his skin. He didn’t know how far he wanted to go, in fact, the most he knew was that he _had_ to get the poor kid as far as possible from the HYDRA base.

 

“Is this your first time flying?” He asked with a huff, forcing his wings to keep pumping.

 

“ _Uh huh_ ,” Peter breathed out, tucking his face a little closer over Tony’s shoulder to watch the sky. The two of them were silent for a moment, just listening to the trees rustling far below them, the soft sounds of Tony’s feathers as he flew. “It’s so pretty, Sir.”

 

“You don’t have to call me Sir. I’m not your superior, nobody is… you and I, we’re the same. You can call me Tony, kiddo,” he said without authority. He felt Peter’s chin shifting, and a moment later he was staring into large, brown irises.

 

“Tony,” Peter repeated quietly. “You’re like me?” He asked, as if to make sure he had heard correctly.

 

“Yeah, kid. You’re nothing less than me, you’re smart and a heck of a lot braver than me.” Tony smiled warmly at the boy in his arms, watching him processing the information.

 

“Okay,” he said softly. “Thank you, S – Tony. Thank you, _Tony_.” Peter went back to resting his chin against Tony’s shoulder as he felt the man shifting his weight to hold him more securely.

 

“We’ll fly to the middle of this forest and then we can walk until it’s time to set up camp for the night,” Tony called over the dull roar of the wind. The curls moved against his chin and he assumed Peter had nodded.

 

The flight wasn’t difficult, Peter was… worryingly light, so it didn’t make much difference. What made the most impact was the _cold_. Between the two of them, they had a slightly soaked shirt as well as a dry one, black pants from the guard Tony had tasered, a lab coat and a dark jacket, also from the guard.

 

Tony craned his head to look at Peter. The boy’s eyes were fixated on the sky, his eyelids weren’t drooping in the slightest, in fact he looked more awake than the moment he had thrown himself off a cliff and into Tony’s arms. 

 

Peter looked content, aside from his quickly paling lips. From Tony’s position, he could see Peter’s small fingers fisted in the front of his shirt, and the blue tint creeping up from his nail bed. “Okay, change of plans, kid.”

 

Peter looked up, blinking confusedly as Tony began to descend towards the nearest small gap between the trees. He looked like a small, distracted meerkat as his eyes flickered to all the nature and movement as Tony sunk below the treeline.

 

“Wh – why’re we stopping now?” Peter asked nervously, casting a weary glance behind him, looking for any of the search vans he knew HYDRA were willing to dispatch if he ever escaped.

 

“Because,” Tony panted, “you’re shaking like a leaf.” He gently set the boy down, his bare feet squishing into the damp but soft bed of pine which made up the forest floor. He tugged the lab coat off his waist and got down on one knee, holding out a placating hand. “I know the people… the people who hurt you used to wear these, but I also know that you’re cold. So, I’m gonna help you put this on, just until we get to the next town, okay?”

 

Peter cast his chin downward, rubbing his upper arms with his cold palms and nibbling the bottom of his blue-tinted lips.

 

“O – okay… okay,” he resigned. He flinched slightly as Tony rose, but he steadied himself quickly and shoved his arms through both of the large sleeves. He turned back around and adjusted the coat, looking back to Tony, waiting for a reaction.

 

“Alright, it doesn’t exactly fit… you’re swimming in it, but its all we have and its better than letting you freeze. All good, kiddie?” Peter blinked, still looking up at him, waiting for… _something_. “You okay? What’s up?”

 

“D – did I…” he began quietly, trailing off and gnawing at the inside of his cheek. “Was I good, Sir?” The boy watched Tony with shining eyes, _waiting for praise_ Tony realised.

 

“Yeah, real good Pete. Like I said, you’re brave.” Tony reached forward slowly, he tucked both edges of the coat closer into Peter’s torso, hoping it would keep the boy warmer. “Just Tony though, alright?” Peter opened his mouth before shutting it as he realised his slip up.

 

“Sorry,” he whispered. Tony shook his head, holding out his arms for Peter to clamber back into, so they could take off once more.

 

“It’s okay,” he replied with a small smile. He worried about the boy, about how conditioned he was, and how difficult it would be to break that.

 

\----

 

They had flown for almost four hours, and Tony’s wings were finally beginning to grow tired, although Peter’s iron grip around his neck hadn’t loosened once during the entire flight. They could see a large clearing far off in the distance, a few artificial lights glazed the horizon and Tony could tell it was a small town.

 

“I think we’re close enough,” he declared, bringing them back down to the ground. “I don’t want to land any closer, in case someone sees the wings.” Peter stepped back onto the pine bed, stretching his arms out shakily.

 

Tony ran a hand through his hair, shivering as a breeze picked up. “It’ll be an hour’s walk from here,” he mentioned. “You need something to protect your feet though.” Tony furrowed his brow, thinking hard as he stared at both of their feet. “Wear my socks, I’ll wear the shoes, so you don’t get blisters, but you’ll still have protection.”

 

“Okay,” Peter murmured, taking what Tony handed him and slipping them over his cold feet before falling in step with the taller man. “Thank you.”

 

“You can stretch your wings out,” Tony reminds him, eyeing the way the boy still had his wings pressed firm against his back.

 

“Hurts,” Peter mumbled.

 

“What? Extending your wings?” Tony slowed slightly, moving out to see whether Peter had been injured or shot without his knowledge.

 

“N – no, no I’m okay. They’re just – just stiff,” Peter admitted, letting his feathers peek out from beneath the jacket.

 

“Can I… can I check them? I’m worried they’ve atrophied, kid…” Tony pictured the times where he hadn’t used his wings for weeks at a time, from how busy he was, sometimes he just didn’t have the time to stretch them out enough. They stung with a rigidity that no one could understand, aside from Peter apparently.

 

Peter lifted the lab coat, untucking it from his wings and pulling it over his chest, so Tony could make sure his wings weren’t damaged. “Okay, really carefully unfold them for me now, kid.”

 

Peter exhaled and uncurled his wings slowly, wincing as the muscles tightened and he heard the soft pop of a bone cracking. “Alright,” Tony said quietly. “Can you let me –”

 

“ _Ah_!” Peter jumped forward, darting away from Tony as he felt the brush of a finger against one of his feathers. “Sorry, sorry S – Tony… I – I um, I don’t wanna… n – no touching please.”

 

_Yellow gloves. Hands, too many hands. Feathers being tugged. Laugher, ringing around the operation table. Hands on his feathers, drowning out the laughter, muffling every sense aside from the feeling of wrong, wrong, **wrong**._

 

“That’s okay, hey Pete – kid, that’s okay. Look, buddy no touching, see? You said no, I’m listening to you, it’s okay. You’re okay, Peter.” Tony watched the way the boy’s feathers quivered, the way his shoulders hunched, his body curling in on itself.

 

He didn’t know what to do, not only had he never coached someone other than himself through a minor anxiety attack, but he had never met Peter before. He didn’t know what exactly had been done to him – what was causing the distress or, more accurately, the flashback.

 

Tony took a breath, leaning forward and waving his hand slightly, smiling softly as Peter looked up with wide eyes. “Hey,” he said quietly. “You’re okay now, kid. Just breathe, steady – there you go, good job.”

 

“I… I don’t…” Peter panted, squeezing his fists in the lab coat and holding back a gag when he smelt the antiseptic in the lining of it. “S’ hot,” he mumbled incoherently, peeling back the fabric, much to Tony’s dislike.

 

“No – wait, kiddie it’s freezing. Pete, you can take it off but at least put this on instead,” he took of his own jacket, it was dark and probably thicker. Peter was shaking as the lab coat hit the ground, a muddy green pine colour coated the back of it. “Here,” Tony insisted, helping Peter button the jacket up and zip it up over top. “Hopefully it’ll work like a wetsuit, trap your body heat so the dampness of your shirt gets warmer.”

 

“Th – thank you,” Peter mumbled, tucking his hands into the sleeves and hugging himself tightly as he stumbled forward, not wanting to hold Tony back. “We can start walking, it’s okay,” he pressed.

 

Tony eyed him wearily before nodding and trailing after him. He watched the boy, making sure he wasn’t going to collapse under his own weight or get blown away by a gust of wind. He was tiny, the coat didn’t make much difference, his legs were skinny, and his arms trembled when he squeezed the coat.

 

“You’ll tell me if you’re tired or sore, right?” He called.

 

“Yes. I promise,” Peter said calmly. “I’ll be okay, I have good endurance.” Tony frowned, remembering how Peter froze up and begged with him after the guard with the cigarette in the stairwell mentioned the treadmill.

 

“Did they train you to build your endurance?” Tony blurted, biting his lip and realising the poor kid was probably triggered by things like that.

 

“Yes and no,” Peter answered, shrugging unconfidently. “Half of it was the training, building up endurance, and the other was being surgically enhanced, so I can run for longer.” He pulled the edges of the coat and Tony looked down quickly. “I have scars,” Peter whispered, self-consciously tugging the coat down to cover a few lingering purple marks that ran across his thighs and calf muscles.

 

“I have scars too,” Tony said, hoping to appease the boy. “I grew fast,” he says simply. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he says honestly. “It’s not like they’re ugly or anything, I mean.” He shrugs too, hoping to draw the tension away from the topic.

 

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but he felt the need to make sure Peter was comfortable. It might have had something to do with the fact that he knew how horrid the poor kid’s life had been – he hadn’t even been outside until this point – so, Tony adopted the role of a cushion, hoping to soften the sharp edges of the situation they were in.

 

“Thank you,” Peter said softly. “You’re nice,” he added on, shyer this time. “Why are you being so nice to me?” His voice was barely a whisper now.

 

_Because you’re my son. You were stuck in there for years and I never saved you… I didn’t even know you existed. I’m changing that_.

 

“Because you don’t deserve a life like that, nobody does,” he says sincerely.

 

“Oh.”

 

Tony looked up, focusing on Peter and suddenly feeling a flare of anger, not for the boy, but for the fact that he didn’t understand he deserved to be treated better.

 

“Pete, you were nothing more than an experiment to them – a test subject. You’re so much more, you shouldn’t have ever been at HYDRA in the first place.” _You’re my son… You were supposed to be with me…_ “I… I just – I can’t believe anyone could hurt you.”

 

Peter flushed, his cheeks reddening and his nose scrunching up as he tried to contain the blush. He looked to the ground and rubbed a hand over his arm.

 

“I can’t believe you saved me…” He admitted. Tony’s eyes softened. This boy was something else.

 

“Of course I did, you were being mistreated,” Tony said simply.

 

Leaves and sticks crunched under their feet. Peter winced every few steps, Tony worried about his wings and how much they must have atrophied after being cooped up for days, months… maybe even years.

 

He could see their breath in the air, hanging like a cloud of ice particles. Tony wanted to tuck the tiny boy under his wing. He had little body mass, not to mention the lack of body fat. He was shivering, his teeth gnashing together as his shoulders shook. If his wings were proportionate to his body mass, he could have used them as a way to block the wind.

 

“T – Tony?” Peter asked through chattering teeth. The breaching of the comfortable silence between them surprised Tony for a brief moment. “How di – did you find me? I m – mean how did you kn – know I needed saving?”

 

Tony closed his eyes… how was he supposed to answer that?

 

It wasn’t like he could be honest and break out with the truth – _HYDRA wanted me back because I’m the original subject, I’m your father because you were just a clone of me_.

 

“I um… HYDRA found out about me – and my wings – so, I hacked into their servers to figure out who they were… then I found your records and – well um… I couldn’t just leave you in their care.”

 

Peter looked up at him with wide eyes, blinking curiously. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then spoke.

 

“So… you were an experiment too? Like me?” Peter’s voice was open and innocent. Tony’s heart wobbled dangerously in place. _Who had taught this poor, innocent kid that they were nothing more than a science experiment_?

 

“Uh… y – yeah, kinda,” Tony managed, pushing himself to walk faster, hoping the subject would change. _How long could he keep the secret? How long until he had to tell the boy he was his father_?

 

“Oh…” Peter mumbled sadly. “Did they hurt you too?” He asked, his head quirking to the side. Tony shook his head, guilt bubbling in his stomach. “That’s good,” Peter chirped happily. “You’re not supposed to hurt nice people,” he pointed out matter of factly. As if he himself wasn’t the purest soul out there.

 

“How do you know I’m a nice person?” Tony asked, self-deprecation creeping into his tone. Peter looked up at him sincerely, his eyes alight with belief in what he was saying.

 

“Because you saved me.”

 

\----

 

They had been walking for almost two hours. Peter had been chasing the silence away with endless questions.

 

_“What are the stars like?” “Have you ever seen rain?” “When did you learn how to fly?”_

 

Tony smiled, keeping the boy entertained with his answers and grinning wider when he saw the enraptured expression on his face. Peter clung to every word, treating Tony as if he wasn’t the absent father who had lived in ignorance for fourteen years, not knowing his own son had been hurt by HYDRA day after day.

 

In some sense, Tony knew it wasn’t fair to blame himself for what had happened to Peter, but he couldn’t help feeling like he should have figured it out sooner… Then perhaps the kid would have a better chance at recovering and becoming a normal teenager.

 

“Next bit of shelter we find will be our camp for the night, hopefully we can find a big tree or something,” Tony said, talking to himself more than anyone else. “The town isn’t too far up ahead, maybe a ten-minute walk.” He scanned the trees as they passed. He could see the sky was grey through the treetops, and he didn’t want Peter’s first night outside of a cage to be damp and cold.

 

He didn’t want to shatter the illusion that the boy had. He didn’t want to ruin the idea that nature was all unseen beauty to the kid. Peter deserved that, he deserved to see things he had never seen before.

 

Tony had known the kid for less than a day and he already knew that Peter deserved the stars and the moon he so desperately wished to see. He already knew that Peter looked to him as if he had hung them in the sky.

 

“Is this good, Sir? Um, o – oh, sorry – Tony. Is this good, Tony?” Peter was pointing to a small dip in a rock wall. It resembled a sort of cave-like structure, and it would definitely keep them mostly sheltered from wind and rain.

 

“Yeah, kiddie,” Tony said with a soft look in his eyes. “You did good.” Peter smiled and looked down at his sock covered feet. His cheeks shifted to a darker shade of pink and he seemed to be keeping a lid on how much Tony’s praise pleased him. “Okay,” Tony said, clapping his hands together, “this should work.”

 

Peter crawled into the small space, tucking his knees beneath his chin and slowly curling up like a small cat following routine. Tony shuddered when he realised Peter probably _was_ following routine, seeing as the size of the dog crate cage would have prevented him from sleeping any other way.

 

Tony bunched up next to Peter, spreading his wings and rolling his shoulders before getting fully situated. He reached out and began brushing his own feathers from the base to the tip, stroking them downward so they were all angled the best for aero dynamicity.

 

He looked over at Peter, running his eyes over the uneven, frail feathers covering his small wings. “You want me to help you groom?” He asked. Peter perked up, looking over his shoulder at Tony and tilting his head in confusion.

 

“Help me… groom?” Peter repeated, his voice raising at the end of the sentence, like he was asking a question.

 

“Yeah, your wings,” Tony explained, running a hand over his on wing as a demonstration.

 

“Oh, um… I’ve – I never –” Peter cut himself off, biting his lip as he stretched out one wing gingerly. “I don’t know how,” he continued quietly. Tony lifted a hand before realising the boy probably wouldn’t react well to an assuring hand on his shoulder, so he left it hovering.

 

“That’s okay. I can teach you if you’d like, I can help you stretch too.” Tony paused, thinking for a moment. “If you stretch them out, build up some muscles and let me help you out, I reckon we can get you flying on your own.”

 

“I… you mean…” Peter trailed off, pointing upward at the sky. “You mean up there, flying? With my wings?” Tony smiled, loving the spark of hope that glinted in Peter’s eyes. He nodded, watching Peter wriggling in place as he stretched out his wings more.

 

“But first you need to eat a full meal, get some water, warmer clothes and maybe a shower too.” Peter smiled and shuffled closer to Tony, not realising how much the tiny gesture of trust warmed the man’s heart. “C’mere,” Tony said, opening his arms and gesturing to Peter’s wings. “Let me know if anything hurts, okay? I’ll be really gentle.”

 

“Um… c – can you show me how t – to do it myself, please?” Peter asked softly.

 

“Of course,” Tony said, slightly disheartened. “Just run your hands over your feathers, brush them all into the same direction and wipe away any dirt and things.” He watched Peter following his instructions, nodding encouragingly when Peter tilted his body back and forth to show off the feathers which weren’t as scruffy as they had been five minutes beforehand.

 

“They feel nicer like this,” Peter pointed out, running a hand over his left wing and wrapping it around his shoulders like a self-hug. “Thank you, Tony.”

 

And for the first time, Peter didn’t stutter, he didn’t pause or have to catch himself. He simply called his saviour by his name, _Tony_ , as opposed to what he had been taught to say, _Sir_.

 

“No problem,” Tony sighed, leaning against the wall and carefully resting his cheek over onto his own shoulder. “You can stretch out, its okay,” he nodded, encouraging the boy to uncurl and spread out.

 

“Mhm,” Peter mumbled, timidly lifting his head to lay it amongst the pine needle pillow beside Tony’s hip. The two were silent for a moment, Tony was content while Peter was biting his tongue, wondering whether he should speak or not.

 

Peter shifted, chewing his thumb nail anxiously as he watched Tony blinking tiredly. “Thank you for saving me,” he choked out, his voice breaking.

 

Tony was surprised to see the reflection of his wings in the boy’s watery eyes. Peter stared up at him with shining and unwavering devotion. “ _Thank you_ ,” he repeated, wiping his cheek with a dirty palm.

 

“Oh, kiddie,” Tony breathed, rolling onto his side. His fingers twitched, he wanted to wipe away the dirt before Peter’s tears spilled down his cheeks and made a watery, muddy mess. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s so okay,” he promised, letting the boy wrap a small hand around his wrist.

 

“Y – you _s – saved_ me,” Peter stuttered, holding Tony’s hand and not leaning away when the man gently lifted a hand and oh so gently lifted his head into his lap.

 

“You’re free now, Pete. Don’t cry,” Tony urged, hating to see the poor kid melting into his lap like the touch-starved boy he was. “You’re gonna see the stars, and tomorrow we’re going into town, you can pick out your own coat, sleeping bag, anything you want. It’s yours.”

 

“I just wanna be safe for once…” Peter admitted softly.

 

And it hurt, the kid sounded so _young_.

 

Tony bit the inside of his cheek, wondering whether he had the right to say what he was about to say.

 

“I will,” he said slowly. “I’ll keep you safe.” And as if that statement alone appeased Peter, he blinked twice, closed his eyes, and nestled his head down in Tony’s lap. Completely trusting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And everyone give Shoyzz MAJOR props for her amazing art! <3
> 
>  
> 
> Her tumblr is @Shoyzz-Art and mine is @Agib-2002  
> <3


	4. Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Tony make a loose plan for the day and head into town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this and it's been so much fun working on this with Shoyzz!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave all the comments letting us know what you think!
> 
> <3

Tony mindlessly watched the sky, swirling patterns in the dirt beneath him. Surprisingly, the weight of the boy curled up against his lap was… comforting, to say the least. Tony wondered how he had gained the kid’s trust already, and whether he would be able to sustain a real relationship with someone who’s past was ravaged by experiments and torture.

 

Peter’s chest rose and fell evenly, and Tony kept one protective hand rested against the small of his back.

 

“Piccola piuma,” he murmured softly. The words sounded right against his tongue, and he wondered whether Peter spoke anything aside from English.

 

The boy squirmed slightly, reaching up blearily and rubbing one eye with his fist.

 

“T’ny?” He asked quietly. The mechanic looked down to his lap and smiled as Peter stared up at him with wide eyes.

 

“Hey kiddie,” he greeted softly. “How’d you sleep?” Peter looked down and then back up with a small blush on his cheeks.

 

“Did I sleep here the whole night?” He asked sheepishly.

 

“No, not the whole night. We still have a few hours of darkness left.” Tony smiled, watching Peter shyly lift his head away from his lap. “And yeah, you slept on me the whole time.” Peter’s cheeks brightened under the faint light of the moon. “But it’s okay, I don’t mind.”

 

“You don’t?” Peter asked timidly. Tony shook his head adamantly.

 

“You’re like a little space heater,” he joked. “It’s all good, you don’t have to worry about me,” he pressed. “But you do need to get enough sleep,” Tony eyed the dark rings marring the pale skin below Peter’s eyes. “You deserve proper rest for once in your life.” Peter flushed slightly pink before nodding gratefully.

 

“Um… do you want me to move?” Peter asked quietly, gesturing to where his head was still hovering above Tony’s knee.

 

“No, you’re good where you were,” he mumbled, settling in himself and wincing as his back scratched against the rough wall of rock. “Once the sun comes up, we can trek into the little town I pointed out earlier and get some proper camping gear.” He sighed, watching Peter tentatively shuffling back into place, his small head coming down to rest against his knee.

 

“Are you gonna stay with me?” Peter asked.

 

“What do you mean?” Tony tilted his head at an odd angle to look down at the boy who was currently blinking up at him curiously.

 

“I mean… what’re we going to do? A – are you gonna give me back? Do we just keep walking through the forest until we find something? Is there a plan?” Peter nibbled at his lower lip and Tony softened immediately.

 

“I’m never giving you back to HYDRA, kid.” Peter seemed to visibly calm at that, his metaphorical hackles lowered as he shifted a bit further into Tony’s lap. “But, to be honest… I didn’t really get as far as a plan, so I guess we’ll wander around until I can find us a place to live somewhere away from here.”

 

“M’kay,” the boy murmured, his chin shifting to the side and his feet awkwardly stretching out like Tony had encouraged him to. The man watched Peter wriggling around until he finally settled, his eyes fluttering shut as he nodded off.

 

“Night kiddie,” he said softly. Peter smiled in his sleep.

 

\----

 

When Tony next opened his eyes, there was sun piercing through the pine trees and lighting up the small cover beneath the rock wall. Peter was still asleep, his head resting in his lap with an arm clutching the bottom of Tony’s shirt. His eyes moved beneath his eyelids and his fist clenched and unclenched every few minutes.

 

Tony stretched as best he could without disturbing Peter. He looked down and smiled when the boy wriggled closer in his sleep. He was far more trusting when he slept, he wasn’t afraid to cling on.

 

Eventually, Tony decided he needed to wake Peter up. “Kid?” He asked. “Peter, you awake?” The boy wrinkled his nose and clenched his fist. “Come on, up and at ‘em,” Tony encouraged.

 

“ _Hmph_?” Peter made a small noise in protest, his eyelashes fluttering. “T’ny?” He slurred tiredly, his fist untangling from the man’s shirt and instead lifting up to rub at his eye.

 

“Morning,” Tony greeted, watching Peter wake himself up. “If we want breakfast and proper clothes, we should probably get moving soonish.”

 

“Breakfast?” Peter asked curiously, tilting his head to the side in confusion. Tony wondered whether or not Peter had ever been given a properly sized meal.

 

“Breakfast,” Tony repeated. “You know, eggs on toast, cereal, fruit, bacon, pancakes, the whole lot.” Peter blinked, clearly lost. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll find you something nice.” Tony stood, his knees cracking, joints popping uncomfortably. _Jeez, he was too old to sleep on the floor_ , he reminded himself.

 

Peter did the same, except his joints didn’t pop and crackle like fireworks. He was young, _incredibly young_ , Tony thought as he watched the boy shrugging the guard’s coat over his small frame. But despite everything, Peter buttoned the coat and looked up at Tony, a smile on his face as they began walking.

 

Tony took the lead, but occasionally he looked down to his right and felt the young boy brushing against his side. The terrain wasn’t rough, but the pine needles were slippery and small pinecones poked against their feet irritatingly.

 

After only twenty odd minutes, Peter picked up on the distant sounds of other people, and Tony noticed the trees beginning to thin and spread out.

 

Peter shuffled closer, his fingers itching against the air to reach up and hold the sleeve of Tony’s shirt as his mind whirled. He wondered whether there were HYDRA agents at the small village, or if there were people that would want to hurt him, or even Tony.

 

Peter glanced up at Tony wearily, his eyebrows furrowing. “You should tuck your wings away,” the man suggested. Peter wiggled his back and managed to press his wings up against his back. He looked back up, expecting a pleased nod from Tony, but instead the man looked confused. 

 

Tony leaned back to survey what Peter had done exactly, before asking, “may I?”

 

“Uh huh,” Peter murmured.

 

“So, these here,” Tony began, gently ghosting a finger over the largest bone, “are the bones that you tuck up against your back here…” Peter hesitantly lifted his wing as Tony peeked beneath it to tap at the space on either side of his spine.

 

Peter let Tony lightly guide his wing back, his feathers felt soft against his own spine, but Tony worried as he felt the thin, brittle texture of Peter’s feathers. “And then all you need is a proper coat to hide the little lumps your wings make, then nobody should be the wiser.” He forced a smile, his hands lifting away from the boy’s wings as he pulled the guard jacket on overtop of his shirt and wings.

 

Tony wondered if it was the malnutrition that had degraded the state of Peter’s wings, or if there was another issue he wasn’t aware of. “So, the plan is to get us both some proper jackets, then some warmer clothing, and then food.” He glanced over at Peter, noting the tiny diameter of his wrists, the gaunt look caused by the overly accentuated cheek and collar bones. “And lots of it,” Tony added.

 

He spoke as he walked, reminding Peter to stay close to his side, to call out if anything was wrong, or even if he was overwhelmed by the people. “It shouldn’t be busy, it’s still pretty early in the morning,” he thought aloud.

 

“What if there’s people from HYDRA?” Peter asked timidly. A branch snapped beneath his foot and he stumbled awkwardly, letting Tony steady him with a gentle hand on his arm.

 

“Then I’ll protect you,” he said simply. Tony made a point to not point out the flush rising on Peter’s cheeks or the small smile he tried to hide. “You’ll be unrecognisable after I’ve found you some normal clothes and gotten you cleaned up a bit.” Peter smiled wider at the forest floor.

 

Tony wouldn’t deny he might have been biting back a grin as well.

 

\----

When they came to the treeline, Tony hastily wrapped Peter’s coat a little tighter around his small frame and gingerly stepped out onto the nearest road.

 

It had to have been about six or seven in the morning, and along the street were lamps illuminating the already opened store fronts. Tony counted three separate bakery’s along the street, two clothing stores, a beauty parlour, a restaurant and a café. There was a mechanics at the end of the street and a florist which hadn’t opened yet.

 

“Jackets first,” Tony mumbled as he walked across the road and onto the pavement. The stones were uneven and luckily it connected to three other streets which must have offered more stores.

 

“I don’t… um…” Peter began shakily. “I don’t really know a – about… about money.” Tony turned to see Peter reading the chalkboard sign in front of the first bakery.

 

“That’s okay,” he assured evenly. He continued walking along the street, looking through the windows but not drawing attention to himself or the small boy trailing along after him. “I would never have expected you to pay for anything.” Peter looked at the ground, nodded once, and continued to follow after Tony as he turned into one of the clothing stores.

 

The bell rang, Peter flinched in response. The woman at the counter looked tired, her eyes were half-lidded, acrylic nails lazily dragged down the side of the till and she smiled at the two of them unconvincingly.

 

Peter touched each article of clothing as he passed the racks, marvelling at the fabrics and the softness of it all. He had grown up in a wrinkled, stained and often damp shirt, he had boxer shorts and nothing else aside from the small amount of protection his wings gave him. The clothing hanging around him on racks felt like the warmest, softest things he’d ever be able to feel in his life.

 

Tony was across the room, holding up a puffy jacket that was labelled as ‘downing feathers inside.’ He looked over to Peter and rocked the hanger back and forth like a question. “Well, do you wanna try it on?”

 

Peter opened his mouth to answer before closing it again and nodding hesitantly. He crossed the room and watched Tony unzipping the jacket and holding it out, so Peter could slip his arms into the sleeves. The material felt better than anything Peter could ever imagine. It was cold at first, but the amount of fluff he could feel made everything warm up as soon as it came in contact with his skin.

 

Tony watched Peter hugging himself, pushing his hand against the fabric and watching it puff back out as the downing expanded. “It’s a little big on you,” he said, noting the way Peter’s hands were swallowed by the sleeves.

 

“I like it,” Peter mumbled softly. “It’s perfect,” he repeated eagerly, looking up with shining eyes.

 

“Okay, do you want to try more on though?” Tony tried.

 

“I – I like this one the best,” Peter said definitively. Tony laughed quietly.

 

“Well, yeah. But you can get more than just this one.” He gestured to the entire wall lined with sweaters and hoodies. “You’ll probably want three or four based on how cold it was yesterday,” he shrugged. Peter blinked and began running his hands across the rest of the clothes, stopping on a few and gently wrapping them around his shoulders before hanging them over his arm.

 

_He looks like a real kid on a shopping spree_ , Tony thought to himself as he shrugged on his own jacket.

 

In the end, Peter padded across the store and held up three jackets, the feather stuffed one he had tried first, a fleece-lined winter coat and a simple cotton sweatshirt. “Here, blue or red?” Tony asked, taking two cashmere scarfs off the rack and holding them both out to Peter.

 

“Um, b – blue?” Peter asked, looking as if he were afraid there was a wrong answer.

 

“It’s nice,” Tony praised as he wrapped the scarf around Peter’s neck. It draped over his chest slightly and his chin was buried beneath the fabric, but he could still make out the wide smile painting the boy’s face as Tony pulled the red scarf around his own neck. “Time to get you some proper shoes,” Tony said with a small chuckle.

 

The bottom of Peter’s pants were stained with green from the pine needles, and his socks had pinecone fragments flicking off in all directions as he bounded after Tony with the same wide grin on his face.

 

“Would you like me to hold these at the counter for you while you finish browsing?” The woman at the front counter asked. She sounded more awake as she spoke.

 

“Yes please, that’d be lovely,” Tony said with a smile. He turned on his charm on to distract from the fact that Peter had no shoes on his feet and looked like he had trampled through green food dye.

 

He turned back around to see Peter watching him with those round eyes, he was half-hidden behind a rack of pants, his gaze wearily shifting from Tony to the woman at the counter. Her view of Peter was blocked from where she stood, but Tony understood Peter’s hesitance to interact with anyone, he hadn’t been around anyone besides HYDRA agents and scientists up until forty-eight hours ago.

 

Tony set the clothing down at the counter and moved towards Peter, smiling in a way that he hoped settled the poor kid’s nerves. To his relief, Peter’s stance relaxed minutely, his shoulders dropping in a way that implied the smile had helped, or at least somewhat helped. “So, what size are you?”

 

Peter tilted his head to the side in the same adorably confused manor which he had already done quite often since Tony had met him. “Shoe – what size shoe, I mean,” Tony said, hoping it clarified things a bit. Peter still looked up at him with a hint of anxiety, worrying his lack of knowledge would be cause for some kind of discipline or punishment.

 

Tony, to his credit, merely nodded once and reached for the nearest shoe box with a relatively low number written on it. “Try these?” He phrased the sentence as a question. Both of them seemed to be as lost as each other.

 

The blue and grey sneakers slipped right over Peter’s pine-green socks with ease, and Tony lifted his hand to his chin in thought. “Okay, try them out, go for a little walk…”

 

Peter lifted his foot to take a step, but when his socked toes touched the floor again, he realised the shoe had fallen right off, not even having moved an inch. Tony laughed; Peter cracked a small smile. “Might be a tiny bit big,” Tony managed as he pulled down a second box.

 

“Pretty,” Peter murmured quietly. The shoes were blue with darker stitching, Tony had to loosen the laces so Peter’s foot could slip in, which was a good sign in terms of size. 

 

“Where’s your toe at?” Tony asked, gently pressing down on the edge of the shoe until he located Peter’s big toe near the tip of the shoe but not too close. “Ah, there we go, that’s better, right?”

 

Peter nodded eagerly, a curl falling loose over his eye. “Alright then, lace ‘em up and have a little trot around the store, see if they’re comfy.” Peter bent down, his hands hovering over the shoe before lifting to his mouth where he began nibbling at his thumb nail nervously.

 

“Um… I – I don’t… I don’t know how,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry,” the boy croaked.

 

“Hey, no it’s cool,” Tony said quickly. He stepped in and crouched down on one knee to relieve the coil of anxiety riddled fear of doing something wrong which seemed to be a constant threat for Peter. “I got it, I got it,” he assured, knotting the shoelaces before tying them in a small bow. “There,” he sighed, smiling and looking up at Peter in cue.

 

Luckily the kid picked up on it and smiled back shyly.

 

“Thank you, Sir.”

 

Tony concealed a wince. _They’d have to work on that ‘Sir’ issue_.

 

“Okay, time for sappiness is over, quick march up and down the aisle and tell me if those are actually comfy, yeah?” Peter stepped forward at Tony’s words, he looked unsteady, as if he had never experienced the feeling of shoes on his feet. He padded down the aisle, back down to the jackets, promptly got distracted by a fluffy shirt, and then scurried back to Tony’s side.

 

“I like them,” he said bashfully. Tony nodded and circled around to pluck socks from the nearest rack. Meanwhile, Peter was tapping his feet against the floor and spinning slowly on his tiptoes like a small ballerina. The concept of shoes really seemed to enthral him.

 

While Tony worked his way around the store and chose some things that he knew Peter would need eventually, like pants, shirts, underwear, thermals, hats and a few items for himself, Peter watched. The boy seemed partially intrigued and nervous, somehow the concept of Tony spending money on him had twisted into a seed of worry, and he hid behind the older man when he finally shopped his way back to the register with an armful of winter gear.

 

The woman de-tagged and folded all the clothing, putting them carefully into paper bags and typing away at the register. Peter chewed his thumb more and Tony angled himself, so the grubbier aspects of the kid were hidden from potentially prying eyes.

 

“Your total is three hundred and seven,” she tapped the card reader and slid it over to Tony, who swiped a small plastic card that Peter had never seen before. He wondered how one tiny card the size of Tony’s palm could have so much money on it.

 

“Thanks heaps,” Tony praised, taking the large paper bag and guiding Peter to the exit. They stepped outside and Peter shuddered uncontrollably. “Let’s get some food into you, huh?”

 

Peter looked over to where Tony was leading them, and it smelled amazing. The two of them could smell the freshly baked pastries and loafs of bread from the bakery, and warm, yellow light leaking from the store was like a beacon to Peter, who had never had anything fresh – unless you could call grey, sludgy and medicated water ‘fresh.’

 

“Woah…” he murmured, letting Tony hold the door open for him as he stepped into the store. There were glass display cases holding tarts, pies, shortbread, iced donuts and rows of different bread loafs. Peter could feel his mouth watering; he had never imagined food could be something to get so excited about.

 

“Hungry, squirt?” Tony laughed, watching the familiar brown eyes gaze up and down the rows of baked goods.

 

“I… well I just can’t really believe this is… this is food? You know? Like, it – it’s so pretty and it smells so nice and –”

 

“Slow your roll bud, I can get you everything you want from this store, but you gotta take a breath once in a while.” Tony smiled lopsidedly, fondness deep in his eyes but unnoticed by Peter.

 

“O – okay, sorry – um, I don’t really know what to get… what’s good? I’ve never really… eaten anything aside from the gooey, grey stuff.” Peter was busy trying to keep himself from pressing his face against the glass while Tony cocked his head to the side and frowned, half in sympathy for the boy and half in anger directed towards the men who kept a boy in a cage.

 

“Hi, how can I help?” A man with greyish hair and a beard almost as thick spoke. He looked kind enough, he wore a green shirt with diamond patterns running along either side. “I’m Delmar,” he continued as Peter shuffled a little closer to Tony’s side. “You two aren’t from around here, are you?” He chuckled, picking up a pair of cooking tongs and slipping them into the glass case, pulling a small but fresh cookie. “Here,” he placed it gently on a napkin and watched as Peter hesitantly took it from Tony’s hands.

 

“Thank you, Sir,” he said immediately.

 

“We’ll take two of the donuts, the banana bread, a brownie to share and something you recommend, thanks.” Tony flashed a smile and watched Delmar slipping each item into small brown bags with ease before adding a pastry for both of them. “Keep the change,” Tony insisted as he slid over a fifty dollar note.

 

Delmar nodded thankfully and bent down to pick up a tabby cat which Peter seemed to marvel over with wide eyes. He placed it atop the counter and waved goodbye as Peter and Tony walked back out onto the street with the warm bags of frankly amazing smelling food.

 

The streetlamps were off, the sun was well on its path to setting and Tony smiled as Peter revelled in the fresh air, blinking and taking in as much as he could as they walked.

 

“Where to now?” The boy asked happily.

 

“I was thinking we could find ourselves a hotel for the day, get settled, clean up a bit and then go back out to hopefully grab some basic camping supplies.” Tony answered easily, leading Peter back to the top of the street and turning the corner to find the others which hadn’t been explored yet. “Surely one of these will have a quaint little bed and breakfast for us.”

 

“Like a motel?” Peter asked unsurely. “I’ve read about those before, and also hotels.”

 

“Yeah, like a motel,” Tony paused briefly before adding on, “good job.” He wanted to enforce the reminder that Peter was doing well out in the real world. He didn’t want to unintentionally skirt around any issues with the conditioning and sheltered life he had lived.

 

Peter flushed like he had last time, it didn’t surprise Tony that such a small compliment could make the poor kid so happy – at least not with how horrid his life had been up until breaking out of HYDRA.

 

“Oh, I think I see one!” Peter yipped in excitement. He was pointing to a beige building with pink tinted accents, the front yard was adorned with well-kept hedges and rose bushes. There was a slightly rusted chain connecting a sign to a wooden fencepost reading, “Rose Crescent Bed & Breakfast.” Tony snorted to himself at the overly white picket fence sounding name, but he was quite happy to stay somewhere so inconspicuous.

 

He looked over at Peter, he was smiling softly as he brushed a finger over a rose petal. He tapped his socked toes against the pavement and looked up at Tony with an even broader smile – one of appreciation and absolute trust.

 

“Good spotting,” Tony murmured. Peter grinned and unlatched the gate with an innocent giggle. A bee flew past and his attention was diverted. Tony shook his head tenderly.

 

_Maybe this kid can have a somewhat normal life, at least if I stick with him to help out with the nuances of being a functioning member of society_.

 

“Tony! Look, there’s a puppy!” Peter gasped from ahead, glee clearly evident in his voice. “Aw, his name’s Sandwich!”

 

_Yeah_ , Tony thought, _Peter would do just fine as the carefree, runaway sidekick to a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And everyone give Shoyzz MAJOR props for her amazing art! <3
> 
>  
> 
> Her tumblr is @Shoyzz-Art and mine is @Agib-2002  
> <3


	5. Motel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony books a hotel room and Peter washes his hair for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!
> 
> I'm so excited to be posting this and it's been so much fun working on this with Shoyzz!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave all the comments letting us know what you think!
> 
> <3
> 
> \----
> 
> Sorry this chapter update isn't that long (only just 3k) but I got my first commission (YAY!) So I'm super excited to start on that!   
> [If anyone ever wants one, please let me know and head on over to my tumblr for more info <3 ]

The woman who handed Tony a key to a small room overlooking the street had been nice. Her eyes were crinkled from age, but she smiled all the same. Peter seemed more at ease around her, and whether is was because she smiled, or because she _was_ a ‘she,’ Tony couldn’t tell.

 

He tightened his fingers around the food from the bakery and the bag full of clothing which he hoped would be enough to get them through the Russian winter. He sighed as he lifted the key up to the manual lock, it slid in with a small jolt and clicked audibly as he twisted it to the side.

 

The doorframe was accented pink. The carpet was a light, creamy colour which highlighted the small specks of everlasting grey and brownish smears of mug that seemed to be etched too deep into the fibres of the carpet to ever really go away. There were two single beds and a tiny bathroom which was probably less than the size of Tony’s wingspan.

 

_Speaking of_ , he thought to himself, _may as well stretch out_. He shrugged off the uncomfortable coat and rolled it into an arm-sized lump of scratchy, medical fabric before stuffing it into the pink wastebasket.

 

He rolled his shoulders back and unfolded his wings with a more contented sigh than before. He could feel Peter’s wide brown eyes boring a hole through his feathers. Honestly, how could the kid not? Tony’s wings must have been a literal wonder for him, seeing as he’d never seen another human with wings before, not to mention the lack of… really _any_ colours that had been present inside that HYDRA lab, aside from grey’s and washed out, dull blues.

 

Peter had been watching Tony’s wings, and his lips opened in a surprised little ‘o’ shape as he observed the colours, and the way his opaque feathers ruffled with every small movement.

 

“I like them,” he admitted a little timidly, when Tony caught him staring. “How do you make them like that?” He asked curiously. Tony turned from where he had been laying the clothing out on one of the beds.

 

“Like what?”

 

Peter wrinkled his nose in thought, his fingers wiggled in the air and he gestured in a broad arc at Tony’s entire wing.

 

“Like… like, um – big, and colourful. Are mine just not like that, c – cus I’m bad?” His mouth turned into a small pout and Tony had half a mind to suggest dying his feathers different colours, just to wipe away the look of self-hate on Peter’s face.

 

“No, your feathers aren’t strong enough to retain colours, and your wingspan is small because I’m guessing you’ve lived off small meals for majority of your life. Once you get healthier, I’m sure they’ll grow.” He hoped to the high heavens Peter’s wings would grow, otherwise they’d have to get a plane back to America, and HYDRA no doubt had security in place if they even considered that. Not to mention the fact that Howard probably had facial recognition on all the camera’s in the world looking for Tony right about now.

 

Good thing they were holed up in a small town that probably didn’t even know what technology was.

 

“M’kay,” Peter muttered unsurely. He was stood in the middle of the room, the guard’s jacket still on and his arms wrapped around his midsection. His hair was stood so on end that Tony could see it from across the room.

 

“You need a bath, kid,” Tony said lightly. His gaze flickered over the tangled, leafy mess of Peter’s hair. He could barely tell what colour it was. “And to wash your hair,” he mumbled with a poorly masked fondness.

 

“Okay,” Peter chirped, stumbling back towards the door.

 

“Woah, wait where’re you off to?” Tony asked hurriedly.

 

“Um… th – the shower room?” Peter replied hesitantly. “Isn’t the hose downstairs by the garden?”

 

“I… what?” Tony spluttered. His mind was trying to comprehend things at a million miles a minute. “Why would you need a hose to have a… oh. _Oh_ , I see.” He frowned sadly. The kid thought having a bath meant getting sprayed down with a hose. “Just, ah – j – just come with me,” he finished, nodding his head towards the bathroom.

 

The bathroom had white and grey tiles with pin grout, Tony swallowed back a grimace at the sight of the overdone furnishing theme. _Too much faded pink_ , he decided. There was a small, open shower and a surprisingly clean tub. Two tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner fit in Tony’s palm, and there were three white towels hung over a non-heated rack. It wasn’t what he was accustomed to, of course his shower back home was about equal size to this entire room, not to mention the floor heating and the stained glass windows – but Peter seemed wildly intrigued with the small bathroom, and he had a look of genuine awe as Tony poured a few caps of shampoo into the tub as a hot stream of water began filling it.

 

He watched Tony bustling around, pulling different scented soaps out of the small storage space under the sink and behind the mirror cabinet. The bath was already radiating steam and Tony raised an eyebrow as he caught a glimpse of Peter reaching out to hover a hand over the water, where the steam was visibly rising from.

 

“Aha,” Tony finally exclaimed. “This’ll be good,” he pointed out as a thick-toothed comb clinked against the surface of the sink.

 

Bubbles were beginning to froth up around the point where the tap water was hitting the bottom of the tub, but they rose higher when Tony stuck a hand in and swirled it around. Peter couldn’t see the bottom of the tub now; even the bubbles were less transparent than his brittle feathers. “So, tell me kiddo,” Tony began, “have you ever washed this bird’s nest?” He pointed at the knotted mess atop Peter’s head.

 

“If by washed you mean run it under water and scratch out all the chemicals and blood,” Peter laughed. It was weird, hearing the kid make light of what was frankly a horrible way to live. But at least he was smiling, Tony figured. He returned the laugh and told Peter he could clamber into the tub when he was ready.

 

The boy peeled off his wrinkled, worn-out shirt and neatly laid it out over the hook on the door. He stepped right into the tub, his face contorting as he felt warm water for… what must have been the first time in his life, judging by the look on his face. Tony shrugged mentally as he noted the fact that Peter hadn’t even thought of taking off his boxers.

 

“They feel… _weird_ ,” Peter pointed out as he crouched down, relishing in the water which he sank into as he considered the bubbles lapping at his chin. “Bubbly…” he mumbled, earning an amused snort from Tony.

 

“Can you get your hair wet?” Tony asked, handing Peter a plastic cup that he assumed was meant for holding toothbrushes. He watched the boy scooping a cup full of water and tilting his head back to dump it over his head.

 

He wondered how he had ended up here, helping a kid with a tragic past wash his nest of hair. He lathered his hands up with shampoo, watching Peter awkwardly trying to untangle his hair blindly. “Need a hand?” He asked. Peter tilted his chin, blinking up at Tony who held up his hands in mock surrender. A sudsy dollop of shampoo dripped down his wrist.

 

Peter seemed to consider for a moment, but he eventually shuffled around so his head was in front of where Tony was kneeling on the bathmat. “Let me know if I accidentally tug too hard, okay?”

 

“Uh huh,” Peter hummed in agreeance. He smiled dopily when Tony’s fingertips came into contact with his scalp. Tony could practically feel the kid melting into the physical affection, and he took the chance to gently unknot the clumps of tangled hair. Surprisingly enough, Peter’s hair was softer than expected, and majority of the small knots were just blobs of dried blood that had stubbornly crusted a few strands of hair together.

 

“Okay, I’m gonna rinse the shampoo out. Just tilt your head back and I won’t get any in your eyes,” Tony promised. Peter smiled to himself, it was nice to have someone specifically avoid spilling water in his eyes and nose as opposed to how the old guards that took him to the shower room had treated him.

 

Peter felt Tony placing a careful hand over his forehead, stopping any of the water from dripping into Peter’s eyes. The water was still surprisingly warm, Peter noted, and he was starting to feel the slight strain of his feathers dampening. “And this conditioning stuff is supposed to make your hair softer, and it does all the untangling for us,” Tony explained as he squeezed some of it into Peter’s hair.

 

Peter relaxed enough to rest against the side of the tub, and he was fairly certain he hadn’t concealed the little contented sigh he gave. “So, tell me, what have you always dreamed of seeing? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?”

 

Peter grinned wide as he realised Tony was making ‘casual conversation,’ as one of the books in the social section of the HYDRA library had written.

 

“I always wanted t – to um, see rain?” Peter phrased his answer like a question, and Tony could feel the hope for validation seeping out of him.

 

“Yeah, well that’s fair. Rain is good.” He shrugged, still mindlessly rubbing his fingers around in small figure-eight over Peter’s scalp. “What about places you’ve wanted to go? Hawaii? The empire state building? Statue of Liberty?” Peter pondered for a moment, scrunches his nose in thought.

 

“The – um, there was this book I read once,” he paused, shuffling around against the tub as Tony absent-mindedly finger-combed Peter’s hair. “And it had all these cool buildings in it, a – and it was about architecture.”

 

“Mhm,” Tony hummed.

 

“And there were these buildings around New York, but I liked this one tower by a guy… um, I think his name was… _Stark_? Yeah, Stark tower.” Peter smiled, drawing the rough outline of the familiar tower’s outline. Tony smirked to himself. The kid payed him an inadvertent compliment and surprisingly enough, it made him happy.

 

“Oh yeah, I reckon I’ve come across the tower a few times,” Tony managed through his grin. “So, you’re interested in buildings then?” He gently angled Peter’s head backwards to rinse the rest of the conditioner out as he waited for the shy answer Peter gave him.

 

“Um… a – a little, I guess. I just… I might, maybe, like reading about Mr. Stark more. He built cool stuff, and the scientists told me about him.” Tony watched the edges of Peter’s mouth turn upwards into a small smile as he spoke. “And they only said stuff about him when they were nice, I – in a nice mood, I mean.”

 

_“You did really well today, eighty-four. Stark would be proud if he saw you now, hm?” A smile, less cold, non-calculating._

_“Th’nk you, Sir,” the boy murmured lightly. He swayed on his feet for a moment as he slid off the cool, metal bench. He blinked somewhat sluggishly before looking back at the scientist._

_“Good job,” the man nodded, adjusting the logo on the front of his lab coat and picking at a flake of skin beside his cuticle as the child was guided back out to the hall._

 

“You okay, kiddie?” Tony asked, quickly taking a moment to check Peter’s forehead in case he had missed an onset fever. “You went a bit quiet,” he explained as Peter swirled a finger around through the bubbles.

 

“M’ not sure,” Peter mumbled distractedly. “I guess I just miss hearing about him.” He shrugged somewhat unhappily, and Tony tried to ignore the twinge of guilt in his gut. “The scientist said he’d never see me, but I dreamed he would maybe… at least for a visit like the books said.”

 

“What did the books say?” Tony asked curiously.

 

“All the books I read that talked about Dads were always about them visiting and stuff. But maybe he didn’t know I was waiting at HYDRA.” Peter bit his lip and let Tony stand, his knees cracking awkwardly.

 

“I’m sure he hadn’t been told he had a kid out there,” Tony said painfully. Peter looked at his fingers, they were wrinkled from the bath water. “Do you know what flock is to people like us?” Tony asked unsurely.

 

Peter shook his head as he stood as well, water dripping from his clean hair and landing on the tiles as he stepped out of the bath. “It’s family, like a very close bond. You feel safe around them, and either very protect _ive_ or protect _ed_.” He draped a towel around Peter’s shoulders and motioned for him to start drying his hair.

 

“Like when you saved me?” The boy asked with wide eyes as he clumsily ruffled his hair with the fabric of the towel.

 

“Kinda,” Tony sighed. The guilt was consuming him and he knew he should tell the poor kid he was made using Tony’s DNA, making him his son. “I’m gonna go look for a uh, a hair dryer. You get into some of those new clothes when you’re ready.” His chest felt… tight.

 

“Okay!” Peter yipped, rubbing his hair with the towel and a wide smile on his face. “Thank you for washing my hair S – Tony.” He pulled a face, closer to a grimace than a smile, but Peter didn’t seem to notice.

 

Tony closed the bathroom door gently before resting his forehead against the doorframe. How had he ended up here? He had a kid – a _son_ – who needed him, who had literally nobody else in the world, aside from HYDRA of course, that would ever take care of him. Not that HYDRA would ‘take care’ of him, they’d continue hurting him. They tortured a child for years with no hint of remorse.

 

Tony found him curled up in a cage, wearing a pair of soaked boxers and nothing else. He deserved a real life. A real father, not Tony. Morally, he couldn’t subject the kid to a life on the run from Howard and Obadiah, sleeping in cheap motels on occasion and trekking through the forest each day.

 

Although…

 

When Peter opened the bathroom door, a shy smile on his face and a red nose from all the steam, Tony couldn’t help but run a hand through his own hair and smile back at the boy. Peter swam in the fluffy sweater; a pair of soft sweatpants were pooling at his ankles, but they fit well enough. His hands were concealed by the fabric of his sleeves and his hair fell around near his ears and eyes; they were already starting to curl up at the ends.

 

“How’d they fit?”

 

“Very good, thank you Tony!” Peter said with a less timid smile. He quietly watched the man pulling an object from a shelf above the bench. It had a handle and an odd fan-looking part near the top. “What’s that do?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.

 

“I’ll show you,” Tony answered, plugging the cord into the wall and brandishing the thing like a gun. “Do you trust me?” He asked with a playful grin. Peter hesitated, he knew about guns, about how bad they could hurt… but he trusted Tony, more than he had ever trusted anyone before.

 

“Yes,” he said faithfully. Tony looked surprised, but the smile rushed back to his face as he clicked a button.

 

Peter couldn’t help but flinch when he heard a loud whirring, and the blades of the fan began to swirl. Tony watched him take a hesitant step backward, but as the warm air hit him, his eyes widened along with a pleased little grin.

 

“It’s for your hair!” Tony called over the hairdryer. “C’mere, I’ll show you!” He waved an arm, blinking suddenly when Peter lurched forward quickly, like he had been waiting for the invitation. Tony turned the hairdryer down to a slower speed, he carefully moved it over Peter’s head, trying not to hover in one place in case it got too hot, and Peter confused it as some form of punishment.

 

When his hair was dry, Tony laughed softly, muffling it against his elbow as he put the dryer back.

 

“What?” Peter asked unsurely. Tony’s eyes flickered back to Peters hair. It had gained at least double the fluff value. Peter looked taller, the curls had furled up around the base of his neck and Tony knew the kid probably hadn’t had a haircut for years.

 

“Nothing,” he managed. “Just… you looked better now, clean, happier, I guess. Like a kid with a normal life.” Tony shrugged.

 

“Huh, funny,” Peter parroted. “I’ve always wanted one of those,” he joked.

 

_Dark but facetious humour… huh, he really is my kid_.

 

“Well, seize the opportunities you get, I guess.” Tony huffed a quiet laugh and closed the cabinet. He turned and noted the way Peter’s hair had puffed up massively, similar to how he had worn his own during lazy days of his childhood.

 

He didn’t know why, or how, but he had the ability to give this kid some sort of life, a good one, and he didn’t know if he had the heart to abandon him to some more capable adult that wasn’t off the grid for who knows how long. “Let’s chow down, huh? This sappy stuff makes me hungry,” he complained.

 

Peter’s feet dangled a few inches off the floor when he sat at the small dining table in the corner of the kitchenette. His wings looked a bit healthier, now that the bath water had rinsed off the remnants of dirt and pine green smudges from his night sleeping on the ground.

 

“I like the donuts!” Peter declared, wiping a smear of glaze from his upper lip. “They taste like freedom.” Tony snorted loudly, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling as the boy spread his arms and gestured to the colourful, well-furnished motel room. “This is freedom to me,” he explained with a more timid look on his face.

 

“Well, kid,” Tony said. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And everyone give Shoyzz MAJOR props for her amazing art! <3
> 
>  
> 
> Her tumblr is @Shoyzz-Art and mine is @Agib-2002  
> <3


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